This is a roundup of news related to Palestine with a particular focus on grassroots action and peaceful civil disobedience in the Occupied Territories and within the borders of Israel proper.
We use the name Filasṭīn, since that is the pronunciation preferred by Arabic speakers (irrespective of faith) for their homeland.
Khader Adnan enters 48th day of hunger strike
(
story at Ma'an News)
The Palestinian Prisoner's Society denied reports on Sunday that Khader Adnan had died, as the 37-year-old prisoner entered his 48th day on hunger strike. The director of the society's legal unit, Jawad Bolous, quoted the head of Asad Arofeh hospital as saying that Adnan's health was stable and there had been no changes. However, Bolous added that the Israeli prison service's judicial adviser had said that Adnan's condition was very serious. The prisoner's society head, Qaddura Fares urged all Palestinians to support Adnan by any means possible.
Israel seeks force feeding powers as hunger striker enters danger zone
(
story in +972mag)
The Israeli parliament is expected to soon vote on a bill that would permit authorities to force feed Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike; the cabinet gave the measure its seal of approval on Sunday. Although no direct correlation has been shown, the move comes as Israel/Palestine’s most famous repeat hunger striker, Khader Adnan, has gone more than 40 days without food or nutrients.
Adnan is protesting being held under administrative detention, which means he has no access to due process, has not formally been accused of any crime, and has no way of defending himself.
The head of the Israeli Medical Association, Dr. Leonid Eidelman, has long opposed attempts to force feed prisoners. As similar legislative measures came and went over the years, he has consistently argued that they contradict medical ethics and declared he would advise doctors to ignore any order to administer force feeding.
By force feeding hunger striking Palestinian prisoners, Israel hopes to undercut the only non-violent path prisoners have to protest their treatment and denial of due process. Hunger strikers have gained significant support on the Palestinian street, and Israeli authorities have long warned that letting high-profile hunger strikers die could spark unrest. Israeli politicians also believe that Israel would face international pressure over its practice of administrative detention if hunger strikes go on for too long.
Administrative detention is permitted under international law but only in extreme circumstances. Under Israeli law, the practice is a holdover from the British Mandate period and has been kept in effect by Israel’s emergency regulations. Those emergency regulations supersede most basic rights in Israel.
Khader Adnan: 'The more they torture me, the more determined I become'
(
story in Ma'an News)
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who is now on his 42nd day on hunger strike against the Israeli practice of administrative detention, said Tuesday that "the more [the Israelis] torture me, the stronger and more determined I become." Adnan, 37, made the comments to the chief lawyer of the Palestinian prisoner’s society Jawad Bulous, who was visiting him at Israel’s Assaf Harofeh medical center.
Bulous said that "new dangerous symptoms" had appeared indicating that Adnan's health has seriously deteriorated. "He suffers severe pains all over his body with blue spots on his shoulder and clear speaking problems." Bulous said that despite Adnan’s sufferings, there has so far been no discussion about his case, although he said officers from the Israeli prison service visited Adnan on Monday to see how dangerous his condition was.
Arson suspected at Church of Loaves and Fish in northern Israel
(
story in Haaretz)
Police suspect that a fire Wednesday night at the historic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee, was a hate crime. Two people were lightly hurt from smoke inhalation and serious damage was done to the church, whose roof collapsed.
Sixteen yeshiva students, reportedly West Bank settlers, were detained yesterday as suspects in the arson but were released without charge at 2 p.m.
Since 2011, 17 Muslim and Christian places of worship have been torched in Israel with nobody indicted in any of the cases.
Graffiti, in Hebrew, was found on site, reading “False idols will be smashed.” The worship area suffered light damage due to smoke.
The church is believed to be the site where Jesus fed throngs after loaves and fishes miraculously multiplied, and is home to renowned, eye-catching mosaics.
Jewish extremists torch revered Christian site in northern Israel
(
story at Ma'an News)
The Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha on the shores of the Sea of Galilee is where many Christians believe Jesus fed the 5,000 in the miracle of the five loaves and two fish. "During the night a fire broke out at the Tabgha church," a police statement said, indicating that police and fire service investigators were examining the scene. "Graffiti in Hebrew was found on the wall of the church."
A member of the Roman Catholic Benedictine order, which manages the site, said one of the buildings within the compound was completely destroyed in the blaze but the church itself was not damaged. The Hebrew graffiti, which was found on another building within the complex, was part of a common Jewish prayer which says "idols will be cast out" - or destroyed, an AFP correspondent reported.
Joint Arab List calls for dismissal of Israeli police chief after church torching
(story in Haaretz)
"It is our right to combat any expression of racism," the party announced, accusing the government of not doing anything to control extremist rightwing organizations.
"It does not give the police orders and doesn't invest any effort, and the result is more radical deeds. The failure of the police, time and again, to find those responsible and bring them to justice encourages the terrorist criminals to amplify their detestable deeds on the one hand, and increases the Arab public's lack of faith in the police and its operations."
"Netanyahu stands at the head of the incitement system against the Arab public in Israel, and he is guilty of the revenge attacks we witness in the morning news," the party stated. "A so-called price-tag attack is not an act by deviants, but rather an act by calculated, thinking people that are indicative of the existence and repercussions of institutionalized racism and oppression."
Who protects Palestinian children from the police?
(
story in +972mag)
Israeli police arrested three children — 10, 11 and 13 years old — in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan last Thursday evening on suspicion of throwing stones. Undercover officers arrested them and took them to the Shalem police station, next to the Old City.
Under Israeli law, children under the age of 12 are not criminally culpable and it is illegal to keep them in custody or to interrogate them. Contrary to what the law says, police did not notify the children’s parents about their arrest, and when they arrived at the police station after neighbors informed them of the arrests, officers prevented them from entering the station and getting information on their children.
A long time passed before police released the children, first the two young ones, and the “big” one only after interrogating him. It was 10 p.m., despite the fact that Israeli law only permits the interrogation of minors under the age of 14 until 8 p.m., aside from exceptional cases.
It is estimated that some 800 children are arrested each year in East Jerusalem, some of the them under the age of criminal culpability, and whose legally guaranteed rights are regularly denied. The Israel Police long ago started treating the law regulating the treatment of minors as a series of toothless recommendations.
Internal information in the Yusef a-Shawamreh killing reveals: Commanders ordered live fire ambush of teens, though they posed no danger. The result: a 14-year-old killed, no one held accountable
(
report at B'Tselem)
In March 2014 soldiers shot and killed Yusef a-Shawamreh, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, as he and two friends went through a gap in the Separation Barrier southwest of Hebron to pick edible plants from their families' farmland. The section of the Separation Barrier in this area, near the village of Deir al-‘Asal al-Foqa, does not lie along the boundary with Israel (the Green Line) but rather some 200 meters east, within the West Bank. These families still rely financially on harvesting plants from their farmland that is now trapped on the other side of the fence. B’Tselem's investigation, as well as material from the Military Police Investigation Unit (MPIU) file indicate that the boy was shot in broad daylight, although he posed no danger.
B’Tselem wrote to the MPIU and requested a copy of the investigation file. The organization was sent a partial copy only, including video footage taken by a military surveillance camera. While the information in the file revealed errors in B’Tselem’s initial inquiry, it corroborated its conclusions and highlighted the particularly appalling aspects of the incident. According to the file, on 19 March 2014, three Palestinians – an 18-year-old and two minors – went up to several gaps in the Separation Barrier that had long been used by Palestinian teenagers to cross through and pick edible Gundelia plants from their families’ land on the other side. The military had sealed the gaps in the fence the previous evening, and the ambush soldiers reinforced the seal with metal wire and plastic handcuffs upon its arrival at the area. When the three teenagers found the gaps closed, they began removing the wires from one of them. When they were done, they crossed the fence and the adjacent buffer zone. Only then did two of the soldiers reveal themselves. They called out to the boys to stop, fired two warning shots in the air, and then fatally shot 14-year-old a-Shawamreh.
Policing activity must be planned according to the nature of the activity. The policy of mounting ambushes armed with only live ammunition in the West Bank has led to the killing of at least seven Palestinians since the beginning of 2013. Two other Palestinians were killed in similar circumstances. This policy enables lethal or severe injury to anyone, including people who pose no danger. By deciding to file no charges in the a-Shawamreh incident, the MAG Corps is effectively sanctioning this unlawful policy.
IDF soldiers killed Palestinian teen who posed no danger, report finds
(story in +972mag)
An IDF commander ordered soldiers to fire live ammunition directly at Palestinian teenagers who broke through part of the separation fence, resulting in the killing of 14-year-old Yousef a-Shawamreh last year. This, despite the fact they they posed no immediate danger, according to a B’Tselem report released Wednesday criticizing the military’s decision to close the investigation without indictment.
B’Tselem originally thought they crossed through an opening but later learned from military footage (video below) that they cut through the metal fence that the military sealed the previous day. This means that the IDF knew that whomever tried to cross that day would have to first sabotage the fence. That person would then be deemed “a fence saboteur” – and by definition suspected of committing an offense serious enough to warrant carrying out a suspect-apprehension procedure, including firing at below the knees.
Culture Minister Regev, actress tussle at Israeli theater awards ceremony
(
story at Haaretz)
Regev’s speech was heckled by members of the audience, including actress Gila Almagor, who stormed out of the hall shortly after Regev interrupted a speech condemning Israel’s occupation of the West Bank by actress Leora Rivlin.
“That gang speaks of freedom of expression in order to shut up those who think differently,” said Regev. “They never rose and shouted the shout of the weak and people on the periphery.”
Her remarks enraged the audience, some of whom started shouting at her.
“You have no idea,” retorted Almagor, noting actors have visited weaker communities for years. “You don’t know anything about Israeli culture.”
Rivlin, who won the best actress award, launched an impassioned attack on the occupation during her speech.
“There is another people here that loves its land and has a right to live on it,” she said. “How could they not rise up in every way to be counted? This uprising pains us, and this occupation corrupts us.”
Netanyahu threatens new TV station for Palestinian citizens of Israel
(story at +972mag)
Israeli Communications Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday declared his intention to shut down a brand new television station, “Palestine 48.” A day later, its employees and management vowed that they would not fold so easily. The station began pilot broadcasts on Thursday morning from Nazareth, and for the time being, its launch schedule is proceeding as scheduled.
Israeli authorities — and the Netanyahu government in particular — have been targeting Arab cultural institutions in recent weeks, cutting off funding for an Arabic-language theater in Haifa and threatening to do the same to a children’s theater in Jaffa operated by an Arab actor.
Palestine 48 is a niche television station aimed at Palestinian citizens of Israel (inside ’48 borders, hence its name), operated by the Palestinian Broadcast Authority. The station describes itself as a family station that covers news, society, culture, art and more, with an emphasis on happenings in Arab society in Israel.
Palestine 48 started broadcasting from Nazareth on Thursday. It has limited programming planned for he month of Ramadan, known for high ratings for television in the Arab world, after which it plans to expand its offerings.
The only way to stop the broadcasts, technically speaking, would be if Israel raided and shut down the entire Palestinian Authority television apparatus in Ramallah.
The Israeli army does raid Palestinian — and even foreign — media outlets in Ramallah from time to time. In East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities even raided a Palestinian television studio mid-broadcast, detaining two journalists and a producer.
Netanyahu's genius: Israel's culture of the Feelgood Bully
(
story in Haaretz)
In an elegant expression of Feelgood Bullying, Regev quickly seized on a decision by Palestinian Israeli actor Norman Issa not to appear in a West Bank performance of a Haifa Theater play.
Theater company officials compared Issa's decision to Sabbath-observant Jewish Israeli actors, who decline to perform on Friday nights and Saturdays, and are replaced by other actors.
But Regev was having none of it. On her Facebook page, she threatened to punish Issa by lashing out at the Jewish-Arab children's theater he founded and leads in Jaffa.
“If Norman does not change his mind," she wrote, "I intend to re-examine my ministry’s support for the Elmina Theater, which operates under his management.”
Most importantly for Netanyahu, the culture debate has served to obscure a host of other issues in which bullying behavior has been excused, papered-over, limply slapped on the wrist, or exonerated.
Just in the course of this week, these include the closing of a case against police officers caught threatening and physically assaulting a uniformed IDF soldier of Ethiopian descent [Netanyahu, who posted on social media a high-profile hug with the soldier, had promised him to set this right]; Israeli troops in the West Bank, caught on video beating an unarmed Palestinian man, were given punishments lighter than those handed an IDF soldier for eating a non-kosher sandwich; and the cabinet, over the explicit protest of the Israel Medical Association, okayed a controversial bill enabling force-feeding of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners. One minister called hunger strikes a form of suicide terrorism. Doctors called the force-feeding a potentially dangerous form of torture.
Israel's culture minister is turning artists into enemies
(
story in +972mag)
After it provoked some backlash, she went on the defensive and stated that because her Likud party won 30 Knesset seats, and the “Left” (read: Labor/Zionist Camp) won only 20 seats, that she was at liberty to do as she pleases with state funds for the arts.
“I decide the criteria, I can decide which institutions get money, that all the money go only to the periphery and Judea and Samaria..The government doesn’t have to support culture. I can decide where the money goes. The artists will not dictate to me…We got 30 Knesset seats, you got a total of 20 seats.”
It is worth noting that Regev — who previously referred to African asylum seekers as a “cancer” — chose to use this word during an internal Israeli discussion over state funding for cultural institutions. It is no coincidence. It is because she sees Israeli citizens whose artistic work or personal views challenge the status quo of Israel’s Jewish nationalist hegemony as “delegitimizers” — whether they are Palestinian or Jewish. That they pay taxes, follow the law and fulfill all their civic duties does not matter; if they are seen to be “delegitimizing” Israel, their work may be under threat of not being funded.
Last September, I wrote an op-ed in the The New York Times about how Israel was silencing dissent. In it I described how after so many years of Israeli repression of Palestinians, “the transition to targeting ‘one of your own’ isn’t so difficult. Now it is the few Jewish Israelis who speak the language of human rights who are branded as enemies.”
With the new government in place, this silencing of dissent has become even more explicit in the halls of government. The “enemies” Regev talks about are not only the surrounding Arab countries, not only Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not only Palestinian citizens of Israel, not only non-Israeli Jews who support boycott efforts, and not only Jewish Israeli artists who support boycott efforts, not only those who oppose settlements — but even those whose art somehow “delegitimizes” Israel, whatever that means.
Dictatorship is in the air, and Israel's 'center-left' is still apologizing
(
opinion in Haaretz -- Gideon Levy)
Regev is using boycotts and sanctions in a country that yells “gevalt!” about those who dare to boycott it from the outside, and is thus adding fuel to the fire, since a state that censors, just like one that subjugates, deserves a cultural boycott by the world.
Whoever is now “examining the funding sources” of Haifa’s Al-Midan Theater, which had been staging “A Parallel Time,” will do the same thing tomorrow to Haaretz. Whoever threatens a film festival because of a film to be screened there will soon force that festival to screen only films the government prefers. Whoever brings Norman Issa, who refused to perform over the Green Line, to his knees, will soon do the same to Jewish actors as well. Whoever says it’s forbidden to criticize the IDF is saying Israel is a censorship state.
No one to oppose Culture Ministry's Stalinist spirit
(
Editorial at Haaretz)
The Culture Ministry is turning into the Censorship Ministry with dizzying speed. On Tuesday the situation moved from words into actions: The ministry decided to freeze the transfer of state funds to the Al-Midan Theater in Haifa, and the Jerusalem Film Festival then retracted its decision to screen the documentary “Beyond the Fear,” which is about Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir.
In order to justify her aggressive action against Al-Midan, Culture Minister Miri Regev issued a statement that is a model of ugly, unacceptable behavior by a government ministry. The statement said that the head of the ministry’s theater department, Dr. Haim Perlock, had discovered “money whose source the theater’s directors weren’t able to explain.” It also noted that the theater’s director, Adnan Tarabash, had told him the theater was “political,” and that Bashar Murkus, who wrote the drama “A Parallel Time,” identifies with Walid Daka, who was convicted of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of soldier Moshe Tamam, and considers Daka the source of his inspiration.
Netanyahu slams theater director for calling Likud voters 'herd of beasts'
(
story in Haaretz)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday launched a sharp attack on theater director and actor Oded Kotler for a statement that was interpreted as comparing people who voted Likud to “a herd of beasts.”
Kotler made the statement on Sunday during a meeting of Israeli artists and performers that was called to protest recent actions and statements by Culture Minister Miri Regev, including a threat to cut funding to Elmina children's theater in Jaffa.
In his remarks on Sunday night, Kotler called on Regev to imagine “our world silenced, without books, without music, without poetry – a world where no one bothers the nation in its celebration of 30 [Knesset ]seats, which are followed by a herd of beasts chewing straw and munching on cud.”
More news below the fold:
- Thousands head to pray in Aqsa mosque for Ramadan
- The occupation is about people, not just land
- How Michael Oren sold out U.S.-Israel ties to sell a few more books
- Netanyahu on UN chief's criticism of Israel for death of children in Gaza: 'There's no limit to hypocrisy'
- Breaking the Silence and its slanderers
- After offensive remark, Reform Jews demand ouster of Israel's new religious affairs minister
- Israel Police arrested 7 times more Arabs than Jews at illegal rallies
Thousands head to pray in Aqsa mosque for Ramadan
(
story at Ma'an News)
Tens of thousands of Palestinians from across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip headed to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound for the first Friday of Ramadan, passing into Jerusalem with permits issued by Israel during the holy month. As worshipers made their way to the holy site, Palestinian police were deployed near Israeli checkpoints to regulate traffic. Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told Ma'an Israeli security forces were deployed according to standard security measures, although he said that forces were working in increased coordination.
Palestinian sources reported increased presence of Israeli forces at checkpoints and on Jerusalem street corners. While Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are subject to strict limitations on movement into East Jerusalem, part of the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel has historically made gestures ahead of and during Ramadan, partially easing restrictions.
The occupation is about people, not just land
(
story in +972mag)
Naftali Bennett posted a photo to Facebook on Wednesday of a vase found in an archeological dig in Beit Shemesh, bearing the words “Ishba’al son of Beda.” Bennett’s point, and his conclusion, was that “a nation cannot occupy its own land.” The phrase, “a nation cannot occupy its own land,” is a right-wing slogan that is repeated ad nauseam – by Bennett and others – and it has countless other forms, such as: “the Arabs have 21 other countries,” and, “we actually occupied the West Bank from Jordan.”
Noam Sheizaf contextualized Bennett’s manipulation well, writing: “the right wing’s consistent refusal to understand that it is first and foremost an occupation of people, and not of land, is astounding.” Maybe it’s worth repeating so the message can sink in: nobody cares from whom you occupied the land. What matters is that for 48 years we have been controlling a territory in which millions of people live with different rights than their Jewish counterparts.
This is what the occupation is about. Not some theoretical debate about who owns the land. We keep millions of people under a system of rules so intricate and outlandish that often the military itself fails to make sense of it. (Why, for example, are Palestinians forbidden from entering Eilat?) People can’t even dream of seeing their family members, let alone something so far-fetched as one day seeing the Sistine Chapel. They can’t protest. They can be arrested without trial, as can their relatives. They don’t know many of the rules, they just know the arbitrariness, the “no use in trying.”
How Michael Oren sold out U.S.-Israel ties to sell a few more books
(
story in Haaretz)
Every few days, a new story from the book is leaked. Some are rather gossipy, but all put the Obama administration in a negative light. Once, it was a senior State Department official who yelled at Oren; another time, it was that Obama failed to publicly credit Israel for its assistance during the Haitian earthquake because he was angry at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; in a third case, it was that the “brain” behind the American-Russian deal to disarm Syria of chemical weapons was actually Israeli minister Yuval Steinitz.
Obama and his staff haven’t enjoyed reading what Oren wrote. Nevertheless, they understood that any response would merely give him more exposure, so they initially decided to gulp down some ice water and restrain themselves. But when Oren published an op-ed under his own name in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, under the headline “How Obama Abandoned Israel,” not all the ice in the White House kitchen was enough to cool their fury.
One person who was particularly angry was U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro. He has been involved in managing the ugly relationship between Obama and Netanyahu since day one, and usually, he was the person who tried to calm things down. But hearing such claims from Oren, a man he considered a personal friend, deeply offended him. That same day, he held an extremely harsh conversation with Oren, during which the latter tried to defend himself and explain that he hadn’t chosen the article’s headline.
Shapiro also phoned the head of Oren’s Kulanu party, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Unlike Netanyahu, Kahlon acceded to Shapiro’s request; he summoned Oren and tried to convince him to apologize. But Oren refused, so Kahlon had no choice but to send Shapiro a letter rejecting Oren’s statements.
Netanyahu on UN chief's criticism of Israel for death of children in Gaza: 'There's no limit to hypocrisy'
(
story at Haaretz)
"It turns out there's no limit to hypocrisy," Netanyahu said in a Facebook post published late on Thursday. Calling it a "black day for the UN," Netanyahu said Ban chooses to reprimand Israel instead of "highlighting the fact that Hamas made hostages of Gaza’s children when it fired at Israel from preschools, and dug tunnels towards Israeli preschools."
"…the UN has again chosen to reproach Israel that held itself to the highest moral standards in combat, as was determined just this past week by a group of senior American and European generals."
"At the same time, Hamas - terror organization - is awarded immunity by the UN, even though it has been proven beyond any doubt that it committed war crimes by firing from hospitals, mosques and from within UN facilities. It turns out there is no limit to hypocrisy," Netanyahu said in the post.
Breaking the Silence and its slanderers
(
comment in Haaretz -- Anshel Pfeffer)
Back in the days when I was a soldier walking the alleyways of Nablus and Rafah in the early 1990s, before the Oslo Accord and the pullback from the Palestinian cities, there was no Breaking the Silence. No outlet to report the daily cruelties inflicted by our company on the local civilians with the full knowledge and sometimes encouragement of our officers. The kid, who may have been throwing stones, dragged back to camp and left, trussed up, to bake in the sun. Hours later, kicked out to hobble home, his clothes fouled by his own urine and feces. The young idealistic officer excited because he had been given a sniper’s telescopic sights and ordered to shoot live bullets at “trouble-makers’” legs from the security of a lookout post. The unclear orders for mounting a “surprise checkpoint,” which had led to a friend shooting and killing two innocent people, man and wife, one early morning. A trauma he hasn’t emerged from a quarter of a century later.
Recently I’ve been asking myself: If Breaking the Silence had been around when I was still a conscript or reservist, before I became a journalist and had my own platform, would I have sat down with their interviewers? I’d like to think that I would, but I know that I probably wouldn’t have – the stigma, the bother, breaking the omerta of a close-knit unit, the desire to just put it all behind you. If one of my sons asked me whether to speak to Breaking the Silence, I admit that I would be at a loss on how to advise them. I’m surprised that over the years hundreds of soldiers and officers have been brave enough to overcome the inbuilt inhibitions. For some it has been a cleansing and cathartic experience, but for many the anguish and dilemmas remain.
The IDF Spokesman isn’t going to allow journalists to interview soldiers who will tell them the dark side of the Gaza operation. Only Breaking the Silence is doing that, and yet on Facebook, Katzman despicably calls these men who fought alongside him “a tiny, anonymous minority” who are trying “to slander the IDF.” They’re anonymous because unlike him, if they say in public what they saw in Gaza, they will be packed off to a military jail.
Katzman, the government-funded mouthpiece, has of course every right to present selective parts of the IDF’s operation in a way that serves his paymasters’ political agenda. But his Zionism and patriotism in no way measure up to those of the hundreds of soldiers who have spoken out and told the Israeli public the parts the government want kept from view.
After offensive remark, Reform Jews demand ouster of Israel's new religious affairs minister
(
story in Haaretz)
David Azoulay, a member of the Orthodox Mizrahi Shas party, was quoted today (Wednesday) in the Hebrew-language daily Israel Hayom calling the Reform movement “a disaster for the nation of Israel.”
“Millions of Reform Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora have had it with the ugly lashings out of ultra-Orthodox politicians,” said Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Reform movement in Israel, responding to Azoulay’s remarks. “If Minister Azoulay cannot function as minister for all the citizens of Israel, then he should resign.”
Azoulay reportedly made his remarks in a meeting held with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked about the new government’s position on Women of the Wall, the feminist prayer group that meets once a month at the Western Wall. According to the report, Azoulay referred to the prayer group members as “provocateurs” for wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries at the Jewish holy site, in defiance of Orthodox customs.
In response, Women of the Wall issued the following statement: "We expect Ayelet Shaked, like her predecessor, to announce unequivocally that as a woman and a justice minister, she will not sign discriminatory regulations, and will not be a part of exclusion of women from the Western Wall or from any other place. The court has already ruled that these regulations are discriminatory and illegal.”
Israel Police arrested 7 times more Arabs than Jews at illegal rallies
(
story in Haaretz)
According to the statistics, the police arrested 1,472 Arab citizens for illegal assembly or association for political purposes in 2014, compared to 202 Jews. Israeli Arab leaders argue that the police have become what one called “an effective government tool for silencing the Arab public in Israel.”
Last August Haaretz reported on mass arrests during Operation Protective Edge, including those of people with no criminal record, for “disturbing the public order, forbidden assembly, rioting in a public place and violent acts against persons and property.” At the time the police said that it “enforces [at] disturbances equitably, using crowd-dispersal measures wisely to keep the streets quiet and secure.”
After that report appeared, Freige asked the police for a breakdown of the ethnic identity of those arrested, given claims of a high rate of arrests of Arab citizens for political activity. According to the data he received, 15 percent of the arrests for illegal assembly last year led to indictments. Forty-two percent of those incidents that led to indictments involved Arabs and 35 percent involved Jews.
This is a roundup of news related to Palestine with a particular focus on grassroots action and peaceful civil disobedience in the Occupied Territories and within the borders of Israel proper. The goal is to provide a bi-weekly update on the non-violent resistance movement.
Diplomatic negotiations and actions by armed resistance groups are covered quite widely by the mainstream press and in other diaries on DKos so they will rarely be included.
We use the name Filasṭīn, since this is the pronunciation used by Arabic speakers (irrespective of faith) for their homeland. The more familiar Palestine is the Hellenic or Roman variant. Filasṭīn refers to the geographic entity roughly encompassing Israel and Palestine. It is a likely cognate of "Philistine", the name used in the Hebrew bible to describe a rival of the Jewish kingdom of that era.
Prior diaries:
June 14, 2015: Soldiers remove Palestinians from pool in Area A so Settlers can bathe undisturbed
June 7, 2015: French Telecom Executive’s Remarks on Israel Incite Furor.
May 31, 2015: Online database "exposes" pro-Palestinian college students to "damage their careers".
May 24, 2015: Soldier pays the price for criticizing the Israel army
May 17, 2015: Despite literal "smoking gun", settlers cleared of charges for shooting
May 10, 2015: "Palestinians are beasts, they are not human" - new head of West Bank civil administration
May 3, 2015: 6 year old child arrested in Jerusalem; The Death of Compassion
April 26, 2015: No Arabs Allowed; Christian cemetery vandalized; Annual March of Return
April 19, 2015: Shooting kids in the back, segregating female soldiers, state-sanctioned theft
April 12, 2015: Yarmouk refugees, NYU divestment letter, Terrorizing Children
April 5, 2015: Segregated Streets in Hebron, Palestinians observe Land Day
March 29, 2015: A March for the Bedouin, A License to Kill & To Teach the Nakba