Two reports from B'tselem this week. The first on apartheid in Hebron, where Palestinian movement is severely restricted (as is most places in the occupied West Bank) and Palestinians can not walk or drive on Shuhada Street, in the city's center - while Jewish settlers are allowed to move freely.
17 years after Goldstein massacre, Hebron city center paralyzed, March 3 '11
The closing of Shuhada Street is part of the policy of separation that Israel imposes in the heart of Hebron. This policy has led to Palestinian mass abandonment of the city center and has brought with it severe, continuing breach of the human rights of Palestinians. It is, de facto, an unacceptable regime of discriminatory separation.
Recently, on February 25th, one thousand people, including Israeli peace activists, demonstrated in Hebron on the 17th anniversary of the closure of Shuhada Street.
Solidarity protests were held in more than thirteen cities including New York, Cape Town, London and Rome, organized by the Palestinian NGO, Youth Against Settlements.
The second, opposing a proposed bill that passed a first Knesset reading Monday, which seeks to criminalize boycott and supervise "political bias" in academia.
Civil-society organizations oppose bill prohibiting political protest against the occupation, March 8 '11
The bill clearly seeks to restrict the activity of only certain political groups, solely because they challenge the current political consensus in Israel. Rather than conduct a democratic debate on issues on the public agenda in Israel, the bill silences political rivals and makes public debate impossible. This bill is dangerous. It tramples on fundamental rights, primarily the right to freedom of speech, the right to protest, and the right to organize.
The proposed bills is one of a chain of bills and anti-democratic initiatives submitted during this session of the Knesset that are liable to change the character of Israel's regime.
Two Palestinian families are threatened with eviction in Beit Hanina, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, and Eyes on the Ground in East Jerusalem report.
Kol Yisrael Radio reported today that the Jerusalem local court ordered two weeks ago the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem. The attorney of the families said that they will appeal against the decision to the district court.
[..]
Like the eviction of families in Sheikh Jarrah, here also we see the implementation of “the right of return” of Jews to the properties lost during the 1948 war, while the Palestinians are denied that right.
Wadi Hilweh reports ten year old Muslim Aoudeh was summoned to the Jerusalem police station Sunday. Muslim was detained by Jerusalem police on Feb. 28th for suspicion of rock-throwing near his home, in the Al-Bustan district of Silwan, which is under demolition orders by the Israeli municipality. He had been taken to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in West Jerusalem after suffering from the effects of a beating prior to arriving at the police station on the 28th. Doctors reported he suffered a fractured scull and severe bruising.
See Ir Amim's report, Severe Threat to Al Bustan-Silwan Neighborhood for backrounder and B'tselem's report, Caution: Children Ahead (pdf), on the Israeli police's practice of illegal arrests, detentions, and beatings of children suspected of stone-throwing in East Jerusalem.
Nagey Tamimi, a leader of the Popular Committee in Nabi Saleh (West Bank) was blindfolded, handcuffed, and arrested in a night raid, Joseph Dana reports.
Last night’s arrest signals a renewed Israeli effort to end the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh by imprisoning the leadership of the Popular Committee. In recent months, Nabi Saleh has been subject to arrest raids on an almost daily basis. Ten percent of the village population has been arrested since the beginning of demonstrations in December 2009. Israeli officials have arrested children from the village in order to extract confessions that will be used against Tamimi and other leaders in military kangaroo courts.
Dana goes on to describe a recent interview he conducted with Tamimi:
Throughout the night, we watched coverage of the demonstrations in Egypt while Tamimi reflected on the connections between Nabi Saleh and Tahirir square. “We live the Egyptian type of demonstrations and repression in Nabi Salah week after week, and so we naturally stand in solidarity with the Egyptian people,” he told us.
See here for the recent past regarding Israeli governmental repression of non-violent protest and activism.
From Yossi Gurvitz at +972 Magazine comes the story, Palestinians handcuffed, detained for picking wildflowers.
Last Thursday, IDF gunmen detained three Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, on suspicion of picking an endangered plant, Gundelia tournefortiii. They handcuffed one of the Palestinians, and kept the detainees for about three hours, standing outside in the sun. One of them, aged over 60, felt ill and, after an intervention by the women of Machsom Watch, received medical treatment. The IDF Spokesman did not dispute the facts (Hebrew).
Gundelia tournefortii is a thistle, the use of which is popular in Palestinian cuisine. The three detained Palestinians were basically trying to literally put food on the table. For this they were detained, and will likely be fined, as well:
West Bank settlers of course regularly attack Palestinians, and destroy Palestinian property with impunity. See weasel's Monday diary Palestinians under fire: 13 wounded by settlers and soldiers.
Human Rights Watch release on the demolition of Palestinian Israeli homes in Lod. Last week the State destroyed temporary shelters put up by the Abu Eid family. In December ILA inspectors and Israeli police demolished six homes belonging to the family in the Abu Tuk neighborhood of Lod, near Tel Aviv, dispossessing 67 members of the extended family, 27 of them children.
Israel should immediately cease the discriminatory demolition of homes belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel should ensure equal treatment in planning and zoning procedures for its non-Jewish citizens, and carry out demolitions only as a last resort along with compensation or alternative housing arrangements.
"Israeli authorities allow buildings that will benefit Jewish citizens while demolishing Arab houses next door," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "That obviously discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, but officials haven't given any justification for this clear difference in treatment between citizens."
And, HRW to Hamas in Gaza: Lift Restrictions on Books, Newspapers
Hamas authorities in Gaza should immediately lift bans arbitrarily imposed on books and newspapers, Human Rights Watch said today. Hamas security officers recently confiscated copies of novels from bookstores on the basis of their allegedly "immoral" content,
In conjunction, Adalah (Israel), Physicians for Human Rights, and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights have prepared a briefing paper on the plight of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, presented to the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and to be presented to the EU Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights, in advance of its meeting on 15 March 2011 in Brussels.
Briefing Note: Palestinian Prisoners’ Rights
Lastly, Tony Karon had a good piece of analysis in Time this past Wednesday. Karon hits the nail on the head, these bits especially.
The centerpiece of Netanyahu's recovery strategy appears to be reheating the souffle of an "interim" peace agreement with the Palestinians. Well, no, not an agreement, because it's highly unlikely that the Palestinian leadership would agree to what Netanyahu would be willing to offer, but an "arrangement" that could be implemented, the New York Times reports, "even without Palestinian agreement."
That's how the Israelis did their Gaza pullout, after all, and although details are not known and are still being debated, indications are that it would involve some form of recognition of a Palestinian state with "provisional borders", i.e. the current boundaries -- giving the Palestinians "statehood" in around 60% of the West Bank, but keeping all the major settlements and the Jordan Valley, which would effectively mean keeping such a "state" encircled.
But you don't need to be Julia Childs to know you can't reheat a souffle.
[..]
Besides, such fare has been served up the Palestinians before, and they've declined to partake.