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.
Israel losing Democrats, ‘can’t claim bipartisan US support,’ top pollster warns
(
story in Times of Israel)
Asked whether Israel is a racist country, 47% of Democrats said yes, as opposed to 13% of Republicans.
Three quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz.
Detailing the survey results to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Luntz called the findings “a disaster” for Israel. He summed them up by saying that the Democratic opinion elites are converting to the Palestinians, and “Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America.”
He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes to Israel among US Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse” in his ongoing polls. But the new findings surprised and shocked him, nonetheless. “I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.”
Report: Settlers using 'security zones' to expand in the West Bank
(
story in Ma'an News)
Land confiscated from Palestinians for the purpose of security buffer zones around illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is actually being utilized as "land reserves or for agriculture," according to an investigation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The buffer zones were originally created during the Second Intifada reportedly as a way to curb attacks against illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. According to Israeli human rights group B'tselem, settlements control 42 percent of the land area in West Bank. While thousands of dunams (hundreds of acres) of land have been confiscated for these so-called buffer zones, the investigation found that only three of the areas in which land has been confiscated are being used or their intended purposes.
Dror Etkes, a researcher on settlement policies in the territories, told Haaretz that the practice of re-purposing buffer zones to the advantage of settlements has become a "a de facto means of expanding the area under the control of the settlers." "This is another manifestation of the attitude of the state [of Israel] that treats Palestinian property as if it was ownerless," Etkes said.
Palestinians say Jerusalem council trying to turn Mt. Scopus into park
(
story in Haaretz)
Jerusalem Municipality now calling large stretch of land a garden; step would take away building space for East J’lem neighborhoods.
After failing to have the slopes of Mount Scopus declared a national park, the Jerusalem municipality has instead declared them a “garden.” Residents of adjacent Palestinian neighborhoods say the move is a step toward declaring the area a park without approval from the appropriate authorities.
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the municipality have been trying for several years to push for a national park on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus. Palestinian residents from Isawiyah and A-Tur, and a number of Israeli organizations aiding them, say the real purpose of the park – planned for the last open spaces these overcrowded neighborhoods have to build on – is to restrict the development of the neighborhoods.
The area of the proposed park has no natural or archaeological elements that are seen as worthy of preservation.
Surviving the ups and downs: Israel's first Arab-Jewish school turns 30
(
story in +972mag)
Atop a small mountain in the Latrun area lies the village we chose to establish a small family. Located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the Arab-Jewish village goes by the name Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam.
A few weeks ago, the village hosted an emotional and beautiful event to mark 30 years since the opening of the village school. All of us, parents and children, celebrated in the schoolyard to honor the tremendous effort, and the first of its kind: a school that is both binational and bilingual. With us were also members of the school’s founding generation, the ones who were the first to put Arabs and Jews in the same classroom. Those first classrooms had two teachers, Abed and Eti—one Arab and one Jew.
Thirty years ago, the HaMishmar newspaper reported that the first ever Arab-Jewish school in the world would open in Neve Shalom, on land donated to its founders by the nearby Latrun monastery. This land did not belong to an expropriated, destroyed Arab village, nor was it state land rife with a painful history. Rather, it was a piece of land free of injustice and guilt, and so atop it we built hope, room by room.
Palestinian detainee who ended hunger strike shackled to hospital bed again
(
story in Haaretz)
Khader Adnan ended a 55-day hunger strike at the weekend and remains in a very weak condition.
Days after being released from restraints, a Palestinian security detainee who has just ended a hunger strike has been shackled to his hospital bed again, on the instruction of the Israel Prison Service and with the hospital’s consent.
Khader Adnan was hospitalized against his will at Assaf Harofeh Hospital, Tzrifin, nearly a month ago. He was shackled to his bed, despite protests from the Red Cross, his lawyer and Physicians for Human Rights. He was unshackled last Saturday after agreeing to end his 55-day hunger strike, following an agreement to release him on July 12.
According to the law, a prisoner must not be shackled in a public place unless there is risk of his fleeing, causing damage to body or property, or damaging evidence. Despite Adnan’s condition, both the hospital and prison service insisted the shackling was in keeping with regulations.
Right-wing Jews attack Palestinian vehicles in Jerusalem, injure woman
(
story in Ma'an News)
A Palestinian woman was injured Saturday evening when right-wing Jews threw stones at Palestinian vehicles in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri said in a statement that the incident took place near "the Tomb of Simeon the Just,” a Jewish site of worship in occupied East Jerusalem near Sheikh Jarrah. She confirmed that a Palestinian woman sustained injuries.
Palestinian youths afterward gathered and clashed with the group of right-wingers. Police officers arrested a young Palestinian man and two Israelis and held them for questioning.
Saturday's incidents come amid heightened tensions in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank over the past weeks. In the West Bank, attacks have been carried out by Israeli settlers and military as well as by Palestinian locals. On Friday, a group of Israeli settlers from the illegal Yitzhar settlement in southern Nablus smashed several Palestinian vehicles with stones, days after three Israeli settlers were injured and one killed in a shooting by a Palestinian local in the same area.
One year since Gaza: Why there's no such thing as a 'precision strike'
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story in +972mag)
You often hear of an airstrike on Gaza being labeled a ‘precision strike.’ But how precise can a half- or one-ton bomb be when dropped on an area the size of Detroit?
“In Gaza, we use bombs that are extremely precise, and strike only Hamas targets – not civilians…” – Lt. Omer, Israeli Air Force Pilot
“None of us were fighting. We were not told that we would be attacked… [M]y sister, my mother and my children all died… We all died that day, even those who survived.” – Survivor of an airstrike in Khan Younis during Operation Protective Edge, interviewed for the UN report on Gaza
“A minute later […] the dust had settled and I saw my family all ripped to pieces. My family included my brothers, my wife and my children… The majority of those who fell were women and children.” – Survivor of an airstrike in Rafah during Operation Protective Edge, interviewed for the UN report on Gaza
The Israeli army and government are at great pains to stress at all times their commitment to safeguarding the lives of civilians (even “enemy civilians,” an invalid concept under international law, yet a normative concept for the Israeli army, to say nothing of Israeli society).
To this end, the term “precision strike” is an excellent way of fostering the belief that civilians’ safety is a priority, before the question even comes up. With the surrounding talk of terrorists and their infrastructure, there is little room left for doubt over whom and what these airstrikes are hitting.
As a piece of terminology, Israel’s “precision strike” is a cousin of the U.S.’s “surgical strike.” This, too, implies that the collateral damage is minimal, as well as suggesting that the attack is “a form of violence that serves a greater good: hurting some parts of the body so as to restore the whole to health,” as journalist Steven Poole explains in his book “Unspeak.” Ultimately, he continues, this metaphor “usefully conflates precision with delicacy, the latter being a quality which few missiles possess.”
The oddity of finding hope while investigating war crimes
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story in +972mag)
In the course of the ICC’s ongoing preliminary examination into the situation, this report will be first formal document it draws on, explains Diène [Doudou Diène of Senegal, co-author of UNHRC report on Gaza]. Israel’s official position will be glaringly absent.
Their doubts about local capacity for self investigation were compounded by the Israeli Military Advocate General’s decision, just days before the report’s publication, to close its investigation into four Gazan children killed on the beach in an air strike. Both authors were disappointed.
“It was an incredible decision,” Diène says. “It was an emblematic case in which I thought Israel would try to strengthen the credibility of its accountability mechanism. What happened? Where is the reasoning?”
Thousands attend funeral for Palestinian teen shot by Israeli forces
(
story in Ma'an News)
Thousands of Palestinians attended a funeral for Muhammad al-Kasbah, 17, who was shot dead by Israeli forces Friday morning near the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.
The funeral march went from the Palestine Medical Center in Ramallah to al-Kasbah's house in Qalandia refugee camp before his body was carried to the camp's mosque. Al-Kasbah's body was then brought to the al-Shuhadaa cemetery. Mourners called for a response to Israeli crimes against Palestinians and to al-Kasbah's death, as armed masked men opened fire in the air during the funeral.
Al-Kasbah was the third son in his family to be killed, after two of his brothers were killed by Israeli forces during the Second Intifada.
Death penalty for stone throwing
(
Opinion in Haaretz -- Gideon Levy)
Col. Yisrael Shomer says he didn’t know who he had shot on Friday morning in A-Ram, and I doubt it interests him. Still, I want to tell him who it was, but first how it came about. The Binyamin Brigade commander’s jeep was attacked with stones, which smashed its windshield while he was on a road near the West Bank town.
Shomer got out of the jeep and, along with his brave soldiers, opened fire with live ammunition at the stone throwers. The body of the person killed was hit by three bullets – in the head, shoulder and back.
The colonel contended that his life was in danger. The army claimed he followed procedures relating to detaining a suspect (even though all the bullets struck the upper body.)
Col. Shomer killed Mohammad Kosba. Thirteen years ago, I wrote his father: “Sami Kosba is now a broken man. As he relates the details of his tragedy ... the expression on his unshaven face is one of great sorrow ... He lost two sons in the space of 40 days ... a bereaved father times two.”
The two brothers each survived about a week, before dying at the same hospital in Ramallah. First Yasser, 10, was killed, shot in the head at close range in a stone-throwing incident in the West Bank, near the Qalandiyah refugee camp where his family was living in poverty. Yasser was shot while running for his life from soldiers. He tripped and fell, and they shot him in the head, according to witnesses, while he was already lying on the ground. The Israel Defense Forces spokesman dared claim at the time that the 10-year-old was the “head instigator.”
Just as the 40-day period of mourning for Yasser was ending, IDF soldiers killed his brother Samer. He had been throwing stones at an Israeli tank near the Muqata headquarters of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. The compound was besieged by Israeli forces at the time, and the protest there was in solidarity with those inside. Samer was 15 at the time of his death. He was shot in the head at close range, just as his brother was 40 days before. “Samer? Again a bullet? Again in the head?” asked the disbelieving father from the Jordanian capital, Amman, where he was at the time of the second incident.
Egyptian TV series shines light on the untold story of Arab Jews
(
story in +972mag)
A recent controversy over a new Egyptian television series has served to highlight one of the central tensions at the heart of Zionist thought. This controversy has arisen in relation to “Haret al-Yahud” (“The Jewish Quarter”), a love story which depicts a romantic relationship between a male Egyptian-Muslim army officer (Iyad Nassar) and a female Egyptian-Jewish character (Mena Shalaby). The series, which is being broadcast during the month of Ramadan, has attracted both local and international media attention.
For instance, in an event which has clear echoes of the Australian state’s forced removal of aboriginal children, hundreds of Yemenite babies and children were abducted in the 1950s, as Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber documented in her 2014 book “Silencing the ‘Yemenite Babies Affair.” In 1994 Rabbi Meshulam stirred the issue of the Yemeni babies and was incarcerated. Institutionalized racism was also frequently a factor in the relocation of Mizrahi communities to slum dwellings and economically disadvantaged development towns.
These events underline the fact that Mizrahi Jews have always been in a problematic relation to mainstream Zionism, a point which is reiterated by the fact that Mizrahi academics and activists have frequently emerged as strong advocates of Jewish-Arab co-existence.
Haret al-Yahud seems to have raised two main issues: firstly, it highlights the extent to which Zionism poisoned relations between Arabs and Jews and created the basis for so many of the divisions and mutual misunderstandings that we encounter today. Secondly, by focusing on the specific cultural, social and political situation of Mizrahi Jews, it encourages us to ask precisely how they have been integrated into Israeli society. This emphasis is important both in itself and because it raises broader questions about political Zionism—to observe that this project sustains itself through a prejudice towards “the other” is somehow insufficient and inadequate. However, as the experience of the Mizrahi Jews repeatedly reiterates, it is more accurate to state that this is a prejudice that is so insidious and deeply rooted that it is directed towards the other within itself.
In war-ravaged Gaza, the same old story, only worse
(
story in Times of Israel)
A year after Operation Protective Edge, 100,000 Gazans remain homeless, with unemployment and poverty even more crippling than they were a year ago
Like many other Gaza residents, Salah does not hide his harsh feelings about the rulers of the Gaza Strip and the economic situation.
“They haven’t started building a single home yet, at least among the ones that were completely destroyed. Do you understand? There are so many people here who have no home at all. And our leadership is busy fighting among themselves. At least the clown on the beach makes the children smile.”
In Gaza, 16,000 homes (some say 20,000) were destroyed completely during Operation Protective Edge, and almost no massive construction of replacement homes has begun as yet.
The tens of thousands of families that occupied those homes — more than 100,000 people — are still searching for permanent housing.
Add to that the fact that unemployment, poverty and Hamas’s inability to pay salaries to its workers — all of which were factors that led to the confrontation with Israel last year — have all gotten worse.
A recent poll taken in Gaza by Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that roughly 50% of respondents said they would like to leave the coastal territory. Is it any surprise?
More stories below the orange separation wall:
A vicious cycle of lawlessness in the West Bank
(
story in +972mag)
For nearly 50 years the Israeli army has been treating settler violence against Palestinians as a decree of fate, some sort of force majeure that trumps it in the territories otherwise under its control and responsibility. In other words, the army has dealt with the phenomenon without actually dealing with it.
International law, however, is quite clear that the occupying power, the Israeli army in this case, has an obligation to preserve the rule of law and public order in those territories. In countless rulings, the Israeli High Court has even emphasized that it is a basic and fundamental obligation — but the IDF paid no heed.
Yesh Din published a new report this month, “Standing Idly By,” documenting the phenomenon of Israeli soldiers doing just that in the face of offenses by Israeli citizens against Palestinians in the West Bank. The report highlights how soldiers don’t detain or arrest Israelis involved in violent incidents, how they don’t secure crime scenes so that evidence can be collected, how they don’t document such incidents and how they don’t file complaints with the police. Numerous government-sanctioned and human rights NGO reports have addressed this phenomenon since the early 1980s, and yet, for some reason, the IDF has not eradicated it.
PA defends arrest raids after outcry from Palestinian factions
(
story in Ma'an News)
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday defended its arrest of dozens of Hamas members across the occupied West Bank, claiming they had been carried out for "security reasons."
Adnan Dmeiri, spokesman for the PA security services, accused Hamas of plotting to create instability in the West Bank and told Ma'an the arrests would continue "as long as there is a threat to the security of our homeland." His comments came a day after a senior Hamas official accused the PA of arresting more than 100 Hamas affiliates.
Izzat al-Rishaq said in a statement that the detentions were a "stab in the back" for Palestinians during the holy month of Ramadan, referring to them as a "favor" for Israel.
Police admit they don’t escort ambulances to Palestinian Jerusalem suburbs
(
story in Haaretz)
Police have for the first time admitted in an official document that they will not escort Israeli ambulances to Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem east of the separation fence, even though these neighborhoods are within the city limits.
The policy has been in place for about a decade now. As a result, only Palestinian ambulances serve these neighborhoods.
The admission was included in the minutes of a meeting between Jerusalem’s police chief, Moshe Edri, and representatives of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel that took place two weeks ago. At this meeting, ACRI raised various complaints about police tactics in East Jerusalem, including use of the “skunk,” a crowd-control device that sprays a malodorous liquid – sometimes even inside people’s houses.
Major U.S. church backs divestment from Israeli occupation
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story in +972mag)
The United Church of Christ voted by an overwhelming margin Tuesday to divest from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation. The resolution, which passed by a 508 to 124 vote, also calls for a boycott of settlement products, congressional accountability regarding U.S. foreign military aid to Israel, and ongoing commitment to interfaith dialogue.
A separate resolution declaring that Israeli policy meets the international legal definition of apartheid won a 312-295 majority but failed to meet the two-thirds majority needed to pass the general assembly.
The Episcopal Church and Mennonite Church USA are also meeting this week, with similar resolutions on their respective agendas. The Episcopal resolutions face more of an uphill battle with direct resistance from outgoing Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The Mennonite resolution, however, enjoys broad support from key church leaders and agencies that helped to develop it.
Cabinet quashes bill to liberalize conversion process
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story at Haaretz)
The conversion reform was crafted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous government, which contained centrist party Yesh Atid. It was designed to let municipal rabbis run conversion courts.
The bill was supposed to unleash competition with the conversion courts and ease the process for hundreds of thousands of people, but the quashing Sunday had been promised to ultra-Orthodox party Shas in its coalition agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud.
Also Sunday, the cabinet decided that the rabbinical courts — which handle about 100,000 cases a year — would be transferred from the Justice Ministry to the Religious Services Ministry, their home until 2004.
Prior diaries:
June 28, 2015: Israel's Deputy Interior Minister: I’ll seek to revoke Arab MKs’ citizenship
June 21, 2015: Prisoner's hunger strike enters 48th day; Vandals torch Church of Loaves and Fish
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