ISRAEL: A wolf in the guise of a sheep....

A Palestinian protester throws a stone near burning tyres during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

 

Undercover IDF raid ignites mass clashes, injuries in West Bank (PHOTOS)

Published: 02 January, 2013, 02:31

Dozens of Palestinians have been wounded in clashes with undercover Israeli troops disguised as vegetable vendors. The discovery of a small commando unit conducting arrests in the West Bank outraged locals forcing the regular army to use tear gas.

­Over 30 Palestinians have been wounded along with two IDF soldiers after unrest broke out in the West Bank village of Tamaun.  Dozens more suffered from tear gas inhalation.

Witnesses report that IDF troops were disguised as Arab vegetable vendors to apprehend a number of wanted militants. The mission, by the Mistaarvim ("Arabized") Unit, an elite counter-terrorism force, was then tactically changed from a covert operation to an overt one.

Dozens of masked youths hid behind barricades hurling rocks and firebombs at the disguised soldiers. IDF regular units then scrambled to the scene firing rubber bullets and tear gas to quell the crowd. Reports that lethal ammunition was used were brushed aside by an Israeli military spokeswoman. The military said it arrested a “terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.”

“A special forces squad went in on an arrest operation,” military radio reported. “It seems that a family or local residents spotted the force and then a big disturbances started… some soldiers received superficial injuries from stone that were thrown,” ynetnews quoted.

The incident comes as tensions continue to simmer following the Israel’s eight-day mission in mid-November to destroy rocket launching sites in Gaza. Shortly after the military operation that killed 168 Palestinians, most them civilians, including women and children, the UN General Assembly voted to upgrade the Palestinians’ diplomatic status to ‘non-member observer state’.

In a move widely considered to be retaliation for the upgraded UN status, the Israeli prime minister unfroze the building projects across the West Bank and East Jerusalem and vowed to continue building settlements in the “Israeli capital,” defying near-unanimous international criticism of the action.

Palestinian protestors hurl stones at Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near Jenin.(AFP Photo / Jaafar Ashtiyeh)  

 Palestinian protestors hurl stones at Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near Jenin.(AFP Photo / Jaafar Ashtiyeh)  

   Stone-throwing Palestinian protesters carry an injured protester during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

 

 A Palestinian protester throws a stone near burning tyres during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

  Palestinian protesters throw stones near burning tyres during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

 

 A stone-throwing Palestinian protester stands near burning tyres during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

 

 A Palestinian protester throws a stone as he holds a Molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli security officers in the West Bank village of Tamoun, near the West Bank city of Jenin.(Reuters / Ammar Awad)

  

  

Long Live, Palestine

PALESTINE/ISRAEL: By demolishing homes, Israel is demolishing hope

LEFT: A Bedouin of the Jahalin tribe walking in his encampment near Ma’aleh Adumim, seen in the background, in June, 2012. Photo by Reuters 

 

While the world’s attention is turned to Gaza, the UN and Jerusalem-area settlements, stealthier military maneuvers in the West Bank are pushing Palestinians off their land. If the recent joint U.S.-Israel military exercises actually took place in the Jordan Valley, then Washington is complicit in torpedoing the two-state solution.

 

By Khaled Diab | Dec.03, 2012 | 8:37 AM

As we turned off the road, there opened up before us a vista of the most exquisite and rugged splendor. Hugged on both sides by majestic mountains, the valley we drove through stretched as far as the eye could see with barely a manmade structure to distort the view, unlike in much of the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.

A few kilometers in, we finally arrived at our destination, which was about as remote as you could possibly get in the densely populated West Bank: a tiny Bedouin community in Wadi al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley. As we pulled up, we were first greeted by dozens of goats, followed by the children, then the adults, mostly women, because the men were out at a funeral.

Behind the idyllic beauty of the scene, there lurked an ugly reality. First, there was the community’s obvious poverty: Living in makeshift tents, with no electricity and with water at a premium because it has to be trucked in, not to mention the children who have to walk about 10km each way to the nearest road so that they can go to school, which eats at least a couple of additional hours out of their day, and means they set out at sunrise and often return just before sunset.

But all this pales into insignificance when compared with the imminent threat facing the community – mostly made up of a clan called Turcoman – of being pushed off the land they have lived on and worked since they were displaced during the 1948 war from the coastal areas of what is today northern Israel. Wadi al-Maleh is home to several such threatened communities, some Bedouin and others sedentary farmers, each numbering around 50-100 people.

The Bedouin I met there – whom I had come to train in ways of better communicating their plight – told me that they had received demolition and eviction orders from Israel's Civil Administration and that a number of tents had been torn down by the army to show that it meant business. One said that they had even been threatened with the confiscation of their economic mainstay, goats, if they did not up sticks. “Where are we going to go and how are we going to survive without our goats?” the community’s matron figure asked in distress.

The ostensible reason for this community’s planned displacement is because the Bedouin live in what Israel has declared to be a closed military zone, a designation which applies to about a fifth of the total surface area of the West Bank, affecting some 5,000 residents. The locals reported that the Israeli and American militaries had recently taken part in joint manoeuvres on the other side of a nearby mountain.

Across the Jordan Valley, numerous communities received eviction orders just ahead of the joint exercises. Although the orders do not specify the nature of the training exercises, activists are convinced that the manoeuvres in question are the joint U.S.-Israeli ones. If this is the case, this would make the United States complicit in Israel’s illegal use of occupied land.

Under international law, Israel has no right to designate any part of the West Bank as a military zone because this, like settlement building, is not permitted on occupied land, despite the inventive efforts of government-appointed Israeli legal experts to argue away the existence of the occupation and frame it as little more than a Palestinian preoccupation.

Wadi al-Maleh may be a remote community, but its situation is far from isolated. All over Area C of the West Bank – which, according to the Oslo accords, is under full Israeli military and civil control – and in East Jerusalem, homes are being demolished, people are being evicted and communities are slowly disappearing, and at an increasing rate.

So far in 2012, over 550 Palestinian-owned homes and other structures were demolished in these areas, displacing more than a thousand people, the UN reports. Similarly, last year, Israel demolished 622 structures, more than 40 percent than the year before, displacing almost 1,100 people, more than half of whom were children.

Since I moved to Jerusalem last year, I have visited numerous threatened communities, and I always depart with a sense of bewilderment at how people can survive in such circumstances. Many are engaged in years-long legal battles to be allowed to stay where they are, or are haunted by the spectre of losing their homes.

They live with the uncertainty that their children may well not have a school to attend later in the term, while they are often unable to work because of movement restrictions or because they cannot reach their land. Others are largely cut off from the rest of society by the wall, while many face regular harassment from settlers.

While lack of mobility is tough for anyone, it takes a particularly bad toll on the Bedouin, who feel it is their heritage, even their birth right, to roam free, and I have heard numerous complaints from them about how caged in and trapped they feel. On a more practical level, this also affects their livelihood, as they have little land left on which to graze their livestock.

The sense of powerlessness this creates can leave enormous emotional scars. “We feel constant guilt towards our children, and wonder if they ask themselves, ‘Why did you bring us into this world?’” admitted one father in Izbat al-Tabib, a village near Qalqilya, which suffers from most of the problems I outlined above. “We feel powerless to improve the situation of our children or even to protect them. Can you imagine how difficult that is for a father to bear?”

These words shook me hard. Yes, I could imagine how devastating it would feel to raise our three-year-old in such unenviable conditions, but I thanked my lucky stars that all I was being asked to do was to imagine, and not actually to experience, the soul-destroying reality of witnessing my son being denied his childhood.

Youth is also no barrel of laughs, when you have no prospects, no job, nowhere to go, and perhaps even no one your age to hang out with. “At night, I ask myself, ‘What have I done today?” I realize nothing,” confesses Salama, a young Bedouin who lives on the outskirts of Jerusalem. “Sometimes, I just want to do something, so I knock something down and rebuild it.”

On a more political level, Area C is the only contiguous territory in the West Bank, which is not only home to the majority of Palestinian agricultural land but would also provide the bulk of the space upon which a future Palestinian state would be built.

By building in Area C and in East Jerusalem, Israel is driving the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution, and with the United States not only providing $3 billion in free military hardware to Israel, but also apparently co-training in the occupied West Bank, Washington is supplying the hammer. This is not just a tragedy for Palestinians but problematic for Israelis, as Israel’s own statistics now show that Jews have become a minority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan

Khaled Diab is an Egyptian-Belgian journalist, blogger and writer who has spent about half his life in the Middle East, including nearly two years in Jerusalem, and the other half in Europe. Follow him at @DiabolicalIdea

 

ISRAEL: Netanyahu halted outpost bill, but not world's diplomatic wrath

A seemingly coordinated wave of condemnations arrived as soon as the Prime Minister promised settlers 851 new housing units in the West Bank.

 

By Barak Ravid | Jun.08, 2012 | 10:03 PM

As part of his attempts to press Likud ministers to vote against a bill geared at sanctioning West Bank settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the possible diplomatic backlash Israel could suffer is the legislation passed.

While Netanyahu managed to stop the bill, the compensation he offered settlers, in the form of 851 new West Bank housing units has triggered a wave of recent and severe condemnations.

Following the U.S. administrations initial condemnation, a seemingly coordinated wave of statements arrived, with Germany, Britain, France, and the European Union's Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton holding Israel responsible for the standstill in talks with the Palestinians.

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague was possibly the most harsh, saying that London we appreciated "the Israeli Government’s efforts to avoid damaging legislation in the Israeli Knesset by voting against a bill to legalize West Bank outposts, the decision to move settlers from an illegal outpost by creating housing units in settlements elsewhere across the Green Line sets a dangerous precedent."

"Such outposts are illegal under both Israeli and international law and should be removed entirely," Hague added, saying that settlement construction was a violation of international law, hindered peace efforts, and should be stopped immediately.

"Continued systematic settlement activity, and repeated breaches by the Israeli Government of international law, is provocative, undermines the prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and makes the two state solution ever harder to realize. It makes it increasingly difficult for Israel’s international friends to defend the Israeli Government's actions," he added.

Hague's statement as the German Foreign Ministry released a response of its own, saying that the "German government is very concerned about the Israeli announcement to build 851 new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The eviction or relocation of outposts -- as it has been announced in the past few days -- does not legitimize an increase in settlement construction elsewhere."

French officials sounded a similar message, with French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero saying in a statement that Paris reaffirms "that settlement activity is illegal under international law, undermines, on the ground, the foundations of the two-State solution and constitutes an obstacle to peace," said in a statement."

Ashton's statement joined the previous three, even calling Netanyahu to retract his statement concerning the 851 new West Bank homes.

“Settlements are illegal under international law and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. The EU Representative called on the Israeli Government to “exercise the highest sense of responsibility by reversing these decisions to demonstrate its commitment toward the peace process, in full respect of international law,” a statement from Ashton's office said.

It seems that Netanyahu can endure the condemnations from the U.S. and Europe, representing a international backlash much smaller than he would have experienced if the outpost sanctioning bill would have passed.

However, the harsh condemnations show the great frustration and anger among Israel's European allies over increased settlement activity. More and more EU states are facing heavy public pressure to take steps against it, such as marking products made in the settlements or banning them altogether.

Thus far, most EU governments aren't doing anything about it, with the exception of Britain, Ireland, and Denmark, who are all weighing measures on the matter.

But the trend is clear: as long as the diplomatic standstill lasts and settlement activity continues the threat of a European ban on settlement products and Israeli products increases from theory to tangible reality. 

 Settlers at the start of 

a three-day march from Ulpana to Jerusalem, 

June 4, 2012

 

ISRAEL: Israeli Commandos Raid “Freedom Theater” in West Bank

“The coming third Palestinian intifada will take the form of cultural resistance to the Israeli occupation” Juliano Mer Khamis

by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

Israeli commandos, roughly 50 Israeli Special Forces troops, raided the Jenin Freedom Theatre in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the Palestinian West Bank early Wednesday, arresting two men associated with it and damaging the building, a witness said.

The Freedom Theater in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, had been an oasis of so-called cultural resistance for decades, although it was in the news for a darker reason in April, when its director, Juliano Mer Khamis, was shot to death by masked gunmen just outside it.

An army spokeswoman would confirm only that two men were arrested near the theater but gave no details on why the arrests took place or whether they were related to Mr. Mer Khamis’s killing, which remains unsolved.

The witness, Jacob Gough, who has been managing the theater on an interim basis, said he was called there around 3 a.m. Wednesday and saw several dozen Israeli soldiers throwing rocks at the windows and then arresting Adnan Naghnaghiye, a technician and site director for the theater.

Other troops went nearby to the house of Bilal Saadi, the chairman of the theater’s board, and arrested him after destroying the windows of his house, Mr. Gough added.






“I have been at the theater for three years and I have never seen anything like this,” he said by telephone from Jenin. “We’ve never had this kind of treatment.”

 

The soldiers, he said, ordered the two men to remove their trousers and lift their shirts. When he asked what was happening, Mr. Gough said, he was told to be quiet in harsh terms and at gunpoint.

He said the arrested men were taken to separate prisons and a lawyer had been hired to work on their cases.

Mr. Mer Khamis, 52, was a renowned actor and director who was born to an Israeli Jewish mother and a Palestinian Christian father. An Israeli citizen, he had lived for seven years in Jenin. His mother, anti-Zionist and a peace activist, founded the theater. A film Mr. Mer Khamis made about her work, “Arna’s Children,” received wide international praise and awarded the Best Documentary Feature prize at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival.

YouTube – Intifada Palestine -Juliano Mer Khamis and his vision of the Freedom Theater in Jenin, the occupied West Bank.

Elegy for Juliano Mer Khamis

Juliano Mer Khamis was a fearless artist, and a fearless human being. Arna’s Children and The Freedom Theater are only the two most visible parts of his legacy, a legacy that bespeaks the role artistic creation can play even amidst the most horrible depths of injustice and suffering.

“The Freedom Theatre will provide the children of the camp a tranquil environment to express themselves ” he wrote, describing the vision of the theater in 2006.

To imagine the possibility of opening up a space of tranquility, of expression, and thus of possibility, in Jenin Refugee Camp, whose name has become synonymous with the most vicious and destructive brutality of the Israeli occupation, might be seen as madness.

Its very existence is a testament to the power of the artistic tradition that Juliano embodied with such beauty and power.

YouTube – Veterans Today -Juliano Mer Khamis and his vision of the Freedom Theater in Jenin, the occupied West Bank.

Special thanks to The Ugly Truth, the angels wear fins ; +972 websites

________________________________________________

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat works as a Medical Doctor. Apart from the medical experience, he’s always been engaged in writing activities. He writes articles about ancient Egyptian history, Ancient Near Eastern history, comparative religion and politics especially the Arab- Israeli conflict. Founder and board member of the bibliotheca Alexandrina friends society. Some of His articles have been published in Egyptian magazines and online publications

For more articles by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat visit his website 

PALESTINE: JVP Statement on the Escalation of Violence, March 25, 2011

Please feel free to share this statement with your friends, loved ones, and colleagues. We hope it will inspire heartfelt conversations, debates, and questioning. And most of all action- no matter how big or small- for a better and more just world that values all lives equally.

Cecilie Surasky
Jewish Voice for Peace

________________________________________________________

From Gaza to Jerusalem: JVP Statement on the Escalation of Violence, March 25, 2011

Any act of violence, especially one against civilians, marks a profound failure of human imagination and causes a deep and abiding trauma for all involved. In mourning the nine lives lost in Gaza and the one life lost in Jerusalem this week, we reject the pattern of condemning the deaths of Israelis while ignoring the deaths of Palestinians. We do not discriminate. One life lost is one life too many--whether Palestinian or Israeli.

Within the context of 44 years of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, in the past two years (January 31, 2009 to January 31, 2011, starting just after Operation Cast Lead), over a thousand Palestinians have been made homeless by home demolitions, hundreds have been unlawfully detained, and over 150 men, women and children have been killed by the IDF and settlers, according to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem.(1) Many acres of Palestinian land have been taken and orchards uprooted by armed settlers. Countless hours have been lost at checkpoints, often fruitlessly, while Palestinians attempted to get medical care, jobs, and access to education. One and a half million Gazans have been living with a limited food supply, lack of electricity and dangerously toxic sewage.

This is occupation: daily, persistent acts of structural violence. All in the service of a government that constantly expands illegal Israeli settlements on land that rightfully belongs to Palestinians.

These acts don't reach our headlines because they are so habitual, so we learn not to see them. But Palestinians live them and their profound consequences everyday, and we must keep that in mind, even as we ponder the terrible events of the past few weeks:(2)

·     A person or persons, (we don't know who), bombed a bus stop in Jerusalem, injuring 30 and killing 1 Israeli civilian; 

·      An Israeli bombing killed 3 children and an older man in Gaza; 

·     A person or persons, (we don't know who), murdered 5 members of a family, including three children, in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank;

·     The Israeli government suddenly tightened the siege of Gaza and escalated military attacks, killing a total of 11 Palestinians and injuring more than 40 since mid-March;(3) 

·     Palestinians fired over 50 shells and rockets from Gaza into civilian areas in southern Israel.

These terrible acts of violence remind us that to end the Israeli occupation our best hope is supporting the inspiring nonviolent Palestinian movement for change, in the form of unarmed protests every Friday in places like Bil’in, Ni'lin, Sheikh Jarrah, and the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. This is a movement that respects life, that is part and parcel of the nonviolent democratic people's movements we have been inspired by throughout the Arab world, that welcomes the solidarity and support of Israeli and international believers in equality and universal human rights.

This is a movement that fundamentally subverts the logic of armies, revenge-fueled “price tags”, and armed struggle. And it is a movement that may well do what no other government to date has done-- pressure Israel to be accountable to international law and therefore help create conditions for truly meaningful negotiations.

Because it is so powerful, it is no surprise that the right to engage in nonviolent resistance, a foundational component of any functioning democracy, is under attack in Israel. Human rights activists are being detained or imprisoned. Bills to criminalize the BDS movement, or harass human rights organizations, are working their way through the Knesset.

Just this week:

·      The very act of publicly commemorating the Nakba, a crucial nonviolent act of Palestinian remembrance, was essentially criminalized in Israel by the Knesset.(4)The Knesset also passed a law allowing small communities in the Galilee and Negev to discriminate against anyone wanting to reside there who does not fit in with the community’s “socio-cultural” character.(5) 

·      The Knesset also held hearings to assess whether the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street was sufficiently pro-Israel.(6) 

·     The IDF announced a new military intelligence-gathering unit solely dedicated to monitoring international left-wing peace and human rights groups that the army sees as a threat to Israel. The department will work closely with government ministries.(7) 

·      Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided the home of Bassem Tamimi, Head of the nonviolent Nabi Saleh Popular Committee , and beat his wife and daughter while arresting him presumably on charges of "incitement" and "organizing illegal demonstrations."(8)

As the Israeli government increasingly deploys anti-democratic measures and military repression, we at Jewish Voice for Peace are redoubling our efforts to support the best hope- a nonviolent Palestinian-led resistance movement in which we all work together to nurture life, justice and equality. We invite you to join the movement.

(1) B'tselem: Fatalities after operation "Cast Lead"
(2) The Guardian, March 23: Israeli-Palestinian tensions: a timeline
(3) Alternative Information Center, March 23: Israel's Military Escalation in Gaza
(4) Jerusalem Post, March 23: Nakba Bill passes Knesset in third reading
(5) +972 Magazine, March 22: Knesset passes segregation bill
(6) New York Times, March 24: U.S. Group Stirs Debate On Being "Pro-Israel"
(7) Ha'aretz, March 21: Military Intelligence monitoring foreign left-wing organizations 
and +972 Magazine, March 22: Military Intelligence monitors "de-legitimization"
(8) Popular Struggle, March 24, 2011: Israeli Soldiers arrest Bassem Tamimi, Coordinator of Nabi Saleh Popular Committee

ISRAEL/WEST BANK: Is it a map or a kidney sick with Jewish cirrhosis cancer?!

Self-explanatory