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.
Thousands mourn death of arson victim Saad Dawabsha
(
at Ma'an News)
Thousands of Palestinians on Saturday attended the funeral of Saad Dawabsha, who died early Saturday morning from wounds sustained during an arson attack in the village of Duma near Nablus last month. Israeli settlers are believed to be responsible for the arson attack on July 31, which also killed Dawabsha's 18-month-old son, Ali, and critically injured his wife, Riham, and their four-year-old son, Ahmad.
The march started from Duma village and ended more than three kilometers (1.9 miles) away at the Duma cemetery, where he was laid to rest.
During the march mourners chanted calls for revenge for the death of Dawabsha and his 18-month-old son. Many Palestinian officials, members of the Fatah Central Committee, and representatives of other Palestinian national parties participated in the funeral, raising Palestinian flags and the flags of Palestinian political parties.
Extremist settlers attack another home in Duma
(
at Ma'an News)
Israeli settlers on Saturday morning attacked a Palestinian home with firebombs and rocks in the West Bank village of Duma, little more than a week after an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler and his father were killed in a deadly attack in the same village.
Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that "a number of extremist settlers hurled two fire bombs at the home of Mahmoud Fazza al-Kaabna."
The fire bombs, Daghlas said, landed on the outer wall of the home near a window, but did not make it inside the house.
The attackers also hurled stones at the house, with one of them hitting al-Kaabna in the upper body.
Occupation is the real 'Jewish terrorism'
(
at +972mag)
I have a feeling that the horror which took place in Duma is a crime that each and every one of us knew was coming. We all read the signs, we saw it cooking in the pressure cooker that is Netanyahu’s government and his predecessors. The settlement cancer has spread, metastasizing hate as the occupation spreads in every direction, wasting all of our money in the name of the Torah and salvation — a salvation that can’t be realized without an entrenched, armored villa, overblown security and a faithful and effective child-rearing machine.
The cruelty of the terrorist attack in Duma surprised Israelis a little, but not Palestinians, for whom occupation has become routine. Eliraz Fine, an extremist settler who surely represents only herself and not the peace-loving settler public, said: “I see it as a proper and appropriate action. Deal with that truth and ask yourself: what what is the Jewish interest in acting this way?” According to Fine, “In my view, it’s very appropriate and honorable to damage Arab property.” “The defeatist approach of condemning such actions will only bring more senseless murders. To the Arabs, such actions make clear that the other is capable of unimaginable cruelty. That is exactly the way to stop and deter them.”
Soul-Searching in Israel After Bias Attacks on Gays and Arabs
(
at NY Times)
There's a sentence in this article that I initially read as "last summer’s devastating war between Israeli and Palestinian militants". Then I realized there was no i after Israel in the Times' formulation. That single missing letter seems to me to signify the assymetry of last year's conflict.
For days now, there has been an outpouring of outrage: Israel’s chief rabbis published a newspaper ad declaring, “Violence is not the way of our holy Torah.” Sheikhs and rabbis, as well as politicians from opposing camps, made joint pilgrimages to visit Ali’s badly burned mother and 4-year-old brother in the hospital. Security forces have also reinvigorated their pursuit of right-wing radicals.
There has also been a backlash. The leader of a group that harasses gays and Jewish-Arab couples was recorded declaring that “churches must be burned.” Posters honoring the man arrested after stabbing six people at the pride march — “We pray that all of God’s nation were as filled with awe as you” — appeared in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, where many consider homosexuality an affront to God. Death threats against the right-wing leaders who vowed vengeance against the arsonists have been posted on social media sites.
And there has been blame. Palestinians and leftist Israelis argue that Israel’s nearly half-century occupation of the West Bank and impunity toward settler vandalism inevitably led to Friday’s firebombing of the Dawabsheh home. Gay rights advocates cannot understand how the police failed to stop Yishai Schissel, who had recently been released from prison for a similar attack at the 2005 pride march and had openly declared his intention to repeat it.
“Israeli society is embarrassed, because we know this is not who we are, it’s not who we want to think we are,” said Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi and the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a research and education group. “The interesting question for all of us is, ‘Is this going to be a growth moment or is it going to be another wasted Yom Kippur? Oh, we’ve sinned, and we feel so righteous for saying we’ve sinned.’
Right-wing MKs Boycott Special anti-Jewish-terror Meeting
(
at Haaretz)
Right-wing Knesset members did not attend a special summer-recess session on Tuesday that center-leftist MKs had initiated following the recent Jewish terror attacks. Those incidents claimed the lives of a teenager at the Jerusalem Pride parade, and of a Palestinian child in the West Bank village of Duma.
Not one member of Habayit Hayehudi, Yisrael Beiteinu or the ultra-Orthodox parties attended the event, nor did most Likud MKs. Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan was the sole representative of the government.
Zionist Union MK Stav Shaffir tweeted a photo of the empty plenum, to which MK Sharon Gal (Yisrael Beiteinu) responded: “We decided not to come to your show, slandering 60 percent of the [Israeli] people. Perhaps without an audience you’ll display less prejudice.”
Palestinian Troops Will Stop Revenge Attacks for Toddler's Murder, Says Top West Bank Official
(
at Haaretz)
Rajoub, who as head of the Palestine Football Association sought unsuccessfully in May to get FIFA to suspend Israel from its ranks, placed ultimate blame for the killing on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government. "Netanyahu and his right wing government are responsible, and stand behind every act of terror in the West Bank," said Rajoub. "They incite and provide funding, security, and support to the 'price tag' bullies."
He said he expects the Shin Bet to capture the perpetrators, but that they will get off easy. "I think that they have an interest to capture the attackers," Rajoub said, "but the question is if they have the ability to deal with [senior right-wing cabinet ministers] Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett. Will they really destroy the homes of those who killed the little baby? No. He will be placed in a five-star facility until someone comes along and pardons him."
At the same time, though, Rajoub said he was heartened by the reaction from Israeli society at large. "I very much appreciate all the condemnations that were expressed by Israeli society," he said. "It makes me hopeful that the Israeli people have rejected this heinous crime that was committed in Duma."
Settler Terror Underground Seeks to Overthrow Israeli Government, Say Investigators
(
at Haaretz)
Unlike in the past, the understanding is that these assailants are no longer attempting to deter the government and security forces from evacuating outposts and settlements. Nowadays they have more ambitious aims, like destabilizing the country and overthrowing the government to establish a new regime to be based on halakha, Jewish law. They plan to use violence in a systematic, continuous manner irrespective of police conduct in the territories, investigators said.
This ideological shift among this gang of violent young Jewish fanatics once referred to as “price tag” activists or “hilltop youth” was identified by the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Police late last year. The terrorists came to the conclusion that mosque fires were old hat, and that a broader approach was needed.
Some of these ideas were expressed in a document confiscated from Moshe Orbach, 24, of Bnei Brak, who was charged last week in the torching of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes on the Kinneret shore. He had written the document, titled “The Kingdom of Evil,” which lays the ideological foundation for escalating the attacks against religious sites and Arabs, and offers practical suggestions for how to avoid surveillance and questioning.
New Israel Fund Files Complaint in Wake of Death Threats
(
at Haaretz)
The New Israel Fund, a leading human rights organization, filed a police complaint recently after receiving death threats.
In addition, in wake of the threats security was boosted around NIF offices in Israel. One letter called the NIF an “organization of traitors with not a drop of Jewish blood in it, Nazi dogs.” The writer threatened, “I will organize a small massacre for you.” Another one read, “You should all be murdered.” One of the letters mentioned a senior NIF official by name as well as her address, adding, “You’ve been warned.”
Rachel Liel, the NIF executive director in Israel, wrote Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked on Sunday: “As justice minister we call on you to act forthwith against Jewish terror. Invoke your authority, and act determinedly and without compromise against this terror that threatens our lives and threatens to harm us.
Mixed Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem targeted with racist comment on Waze
(
at JPost)
"The Bilingual School - May Their Names be Erased," was added, in Hebrew, to the school's location on the map on Waze, a mobile app, widely used in Israel, which uses driver data to help people avoid traffic jams.
Waze deleted the words after they were brought to its attention on Sunday. A source at the company said the entry had been made by a user who had had permission to list destinations on the map but had now been banned.
"I have been in touch with the police and I will file a complaint," said Nadia Kinani, principal of the Max Rayne Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem, which was damaged in an arson attack in November.
An Israeli court last month jailed two brothers from a far-right Jewish group for two years for that attack, in which a classroom was torched and "Death to Arabs" daubed on a wall in the yard.
At Yitzhar, heartland of settler extremism, hostility to State of Israel is no secret
(
at Times of Israel)
Home to about 240 families, Yitzhar has become ground zero in the public perception of extremist “hilltop youth,” young people from religiously observant families who move to settlement outposts, resist soldiers’ attempts to evacuate them, and intermittently carry out “price tag” hate crime attacks on Palestinian, Christian and Israeli targets.
But Tubi has a message for reporters. First, he says, the people of Yitzhar overwhelmingly condemn the murder of the Palestinian toddler, which, he said, violates the commandment of “thou shalt not kill.”
Second, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, the head of one of Yitzhar’s two yeshivas — under whom the arrested alleged Jewish extremist leader Meir Ettinger studied — does not condone price tag attacks, as was widely reported.
When asked how the people of Yitzhar feel following last Friday’s murder of the Palestinian child, allegedly carried out by Jewish terrorists, and the subsequent arrests, Tubi replies, “the mood is that our friends in Tel Aviv and these left-wingers are trying to exploit this incident to continue their incitement against settlers. For the last 20-30 years they’ve been demonizing the settlers in Judea and Samaria, who nowadays are the only group of people with any ideology left apart from making money and being famous.”
Jewish terror state already upon us, ex security chief warns
(
at Times of Israel)
Yuval Diskin, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, warned that a rising right-wing and religious country is de facto coming into existence, dubbing it the “State of Judea,” using the biblical term for the southern West Bank, and describing efforts to staunch Jewish terror as too little too late.
Judea is a “nation of Jewish law, of terror, of hatred against the other, or racism. Today, even the rabbis who gave birth to these delusional ideologies have become too moderate and soft in the eyes of some of their flock,” Diskin wrote.
Diskin listed several members of the Jewish department charged with fighting Jewish terror and other high-ranking religious officers in the Shin Bet service who have been harassed by right-wing activists and even by some “mainstream” Orthodox rabbis.
How Obama plans to create a virtual Palestinian state
(
at WaPo)
Even if progress means more tension with Israel’s prime minister, the White House is determined to keep trying. And if the only way to improve the status quo is to change it himself, say those sources who are familiar with the administration’s thinking on this problem, then that’s what Obama will have to do. They have even suggested as much publicly.
Should the administration pursue the higher profile more risky U.N. route, the Israelis and many in Congress will cry foul and argue that the Obama administration is prejudging the terms of a final-status agreement. But time’s running out and, once the Iran deal is done, alienating an Israeli prime minister who has opposed key Middle East initiatives (Iran, peace) is probably not going to keep the president up at night.
It’s a lonely and not particularly productive play, but it’s the only one left. Based on my 20 years working on the peace process, doing something rather than nothing seems to be the American default position. It won’t be long before the White House returns to form.
What Israel’s Dehumanizing Occupation Has Wrought
(
Opinion in Haaretz - Henry Siegman)
News stories reported that Palestinian neighbors who saw the two masked arsonists expressed their disbelief at the sight of them “watching two burning people on the ground,” hearing a child still screaming inside, and "not caring."
That same day, IDF soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager who tried to climb the fence surrounding Gaza, a nearly daily occurrence that has become virtually routine for what Netanyahu insists is “the most moral army in the world.”
The juxtaposition of these two events gives the lie to the shock expressed by Netanyahu and his ministers at the incineration of the Palestinian family in Duma. For it is precisely because Netanyahu and his government have ordered the IDF to shoot-to-kill Palestinian teenagers climbing a fence – who do not pose a mortal danger to IDF sharpshooters at that point – instead of arresting them, that Jewish settlers and much of Israel's Jewish public consider Arab lives as disposable. I am not aware of a single instance of IDF killings of Jewish teenagers - or adults, for that matter - for illegally climbing a fence or trespassing on Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
The direct connection between the dehumanization of Arab lives that led to the outrage in Duma and the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his fellow ministers should not surprise. For in what other democracy would a head of state dare appoint as the country’s justice minister an individual who posted approvingly on her Facebook page, as Ayelet Shaked did, an article by a fellow ideologue calling for the murder of Arab infants and their mothers in Gaza, whom he described as “snakes,” so they not breed future Arab terrorists?
Siegman excoriates the opposition leader Herzog for going along with the two-state solution, which "everyone except American and European diplomats knew was a lie all along". He also accuses him of "collaboration" in the dehumanization of Palestinians by perpetuating the occupation.
Siegman is president of the U.S./Middle East Project, is a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and formerly headed the American Jewish Congress and the Synagogue Council of America.
How Israeli taxpayers subsidize 'Jewish terror'
(
at +972mag)
What do Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir and the arsonists convicted of setting fire to Jerusalem’s Jewish-Arab Hand in Hand school have in common, apart from their violent extremism?
All have received legal representation or some other form of assistance from Honenu, a self-proclaimed “Israeli Zionist legal aid organization.” Based in Kiryat Arba, a settlement next to Hebron that is home to the grave of Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein (itself located in a park named after leader of the Kach terrorist group Meir Kahane), Honenu has tasked itself with a clear vision: to come to the aid of “[s]oldiers and civilians who find themselves in legal entanglements due to defending themselves against Arab aggression, or due to their love for Israel.” In Honenu’s eyes, they are defending “noble citizens” who have “acted on behalf of Am Yisrael [the people of Israel].”
Honenu has tax exempt status in Israel and uses a tax-exempt charity in the US to collect donations.
It must be said that working to safeguard suspects’, criminals’ and even terrorists’ civil rights should not, in of itself, be condemned. Upholding the rule of law includes ensuring a fair judicial process for all, no matter how reprehensible the crimes involved are. +972 has previously reported on and denounced Israeli authorities for violating the rights of terrorism suspects, Jewish and Palestinian alike.
Nonetheless, there is massive difference between defending a criminal or terrorist’s rights and endorsing their crimes. The language used throughout Honenu’s website is inescapably supportive of the actions of Jewish terrorists — to call them “noble citizens” simply glorifies them and indirectly condones their actions. In the case of Abu Khdeir’s murderers, Haaretz cited Honenu as saying that it sees “defending these suspects [as] in keeping with its mission.” Furthermore, Honenu’s work goes far beyond legal support. As exposed by Israel’s Channel 10 recently, providing financial support to convicts and their families forms a significant part of the organization’s mandate. According to the Channel 10 report, Honenu has provided financial support to, among others, the families of Ami Popper and the Bat Ayin Underground members.
Obama says Israeli interference in US affairs over Iran deal unprecedented
(
at Times of Israel)
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, an excerpt of which was published Saturday ahead of the full interview Sunday, Obama was asked if he thought it was “appropriate of a foreign head of government to inject himself into an American affair.”
The president responded that he would let Zakaria “ask Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu that question if he gives you an interview,” before adding: “I don’t recall a similar example.”
Congress holds hearing on Palestinian-led movement, without Palestinians
(
Opinion in The Hill -- Josh Ruebner)
Imagine if Congress held its first-ever hearing in the 1980s on the impact of boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against the apartheid regime of South Africa and failed to call a single witness who supported them. Would anyone take seriously such a blatantly biased hearing as an accurate indication of the principles, aims and successes of this movement? Yet this is exactly what the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee did last week when it convened a hearing to investigate the impact of the Palestinian civil society-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and corporations and institutions which profit from and/or defend Israel's oppression of Palestinians.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), chair of the subcommittee (who repeatedly referred to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank by the pro-settler term "Judea and Samaria") easily could have called a representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, a body that coordinates BDS campaigns with activists around the globe, to testify about the movement's impact. He could have called the president of the American Studies Association to testify why it voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions. He could have added to the witness list the president of the United Church of Christ, which voted overwhelmingly this summer to divest from U.S. corporations such as Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard to protest their profiteering from Israeli military occupation, becoming the third major Protestant denomination to take similar action after the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church.
Ruebner is policy director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and author of Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
Ruebner went on to point out that the witnesses included the CEO of SodaStream International, Daniel Birnbaum. Sodastream's main plant is located in a West Bank settlement. Birnbaum complained about flash mob protests and other direct actions targetting his company and its products as "violent." A second witness, Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, consistently called BDS "warfare" against Israel. Neither witness condemned Israeli military rule or use of military force against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
This hearing was also covered in the diary: House GOP committee chair blows dog-whistles for Israeli settlers, says West Bank is "Judea/Samaria"
Return: A Palestinian Memoir -- Ghada Karmi
(
Book Review in the Guardian -- Avi Shlaim)
Avi Shlaim is the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
In 2005, Karmi returned to her homeland not as a tourist but as a consultant to the ministry of media and communications of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. She wanted to be at the heart of things, to be part of the community, to make her contribution to state-building. But the actual experience she records in this memoir is one of pretty comprehensive disappointment and disillusion. The reader is invited to see through her eyes this angst-filled, rollercoaster journey.
Working for the PA turned out to be at once exhilarating and exhausting. It behaved as if it were the government of a state, with departments of finance, transport, education, health, etc; but, in reality, everything in the Palestinian occupied territories was controlled by Israel. By being on the inside, Karmi became aware of the profound and pervasive impact of Israeli power. She places both Israel and the PA under an harsh lens. The PA, she argues, assumed the trappings of a sovereignty over its lands while in reality it was subservient to the occupying power in every sense and at every level. With practically no sources of income of its own, it is heavily dependent on foreign aid from a variety of places. To Karmi’s way of thinking, the PA’s only honourable path is to abandon its empty, posturing display of power and to assume its proper role as the leadership of a people under colonial occupation.
The picture painted by her of the inner workings of her ministry is unflattering in the extreme, verging on the surreal. The ministry existed in a bubble of its own, paralysed by internal rivalries and petty bureaucratic infighting. Most of her colleagues saw her as a bossy and arrogant outsider and thwarted her at every turn. She looked with horror on the many Palestinian opportunists and time-servers who betrayed the ideals of the revolution although they brandished them whenever it was expedient.
More stories below the orange separation wall:
Most Wanted Jewish Terror Suspect Arrested by Shin Bet
(
at Haaretz)
According to intelligence, the 24 year old grandson the late right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane escalated his activity in 2014 and started planning a series of attacks against Palestinians. These were meant to stir up unrest among the Palestinians and thus bring about the overthrow of the Israeli government.
According to the Shin Bet, Ettinger was arrested with the aid of the special police force in the Judea and Samaria District and has been taken for interrogation for his suspected role in an extremist Jewish group.
Last year the Shin Bet sought to place Ettinger under administrative detention, but State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan denied the request. Instead, a restraining order was issued that prohibited him from being in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and he moved to Safed.
Israel's president is the new darling of the left
(
at JPost)
Disturbed by the threats and curses aimed at Rivlin on social media, the Labor Young Guard together with the Labor Student Movement organized a Kabbalat Shabbat opposite the President’s Residence on Friday and made it public through SMS alerts to Labor Party members, newspapers, radio and social media.
Despite the heat and the proximity to Shabbat, several hundred people – not all of them Jerusalemites – came to show their support for Rivlin. Many came with babies or with toddlers perched on their shoulders. Some came with dogs. There were young and old, religious and secular, political and apolitical, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, young, middle aged and senior, straights and GLBTs.
Yael Sinai, the deputy chairwoman of the Labor Young Guard said that the gathering was a show of support for Rivlin who is courageously facing the threats against him and is not backing down on his principles. “Even though we don’t agree with him on everything,” she said, “we came to thank him for displaying moral responsibility in all that he does wherever he goes.”
Gutler was just winding up his speech when Rivlin crossed the road to cheers, whistles and applause. As he drew level with Sinai, Rivlin, with a grin from ear to ear, applauded the crowd. He said that even though there were occasional disagreements between him and those present there was consensus that everyone wanted something good for the other and for the nation as a whole. He said that he was extremely moved by the outpouring of support, and, looking up at people hanging over their balconies, commented that the meeting might be disturbing the neighbors, for which he apologized.
Lapid: Netanyahu has made Israel a Republican cause
(
at Times of Israel)
Knesset member Yair Lapid, who leads the opposition Yesh Atid party, said Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented clash with US President Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear deal has turned Israel into a cause associated exclusively with the Republican party and damaged ties with the US to the point where the country’s security is under threat.
“For 67 years Israel took care to not be aligned with any party,” Lapid said. “Today, Israel is [seen as being] of the Republican party.
“We have no way of maintaining the allegiance [with the US] if we don’t repair this damage. The damage has Netanyahu’s name on so he is the one who must repair it.”
Israeli forces suppress march over West Bank church settlement plans
(
at Ma'an News)
Israeli forces on Saturday suppressed a Palestinian march protesting Israeli plans to turn a southern West Bank church compound into a settlement outpost, as well as other Israeli "crimes," locals said.
Rateb al-Jbour, a coordinator for popular committees in southern Hebron, said that Israeli forces suppressed the march near al-Arrub refugee camp while it was making its way from the town of Beit Ummar towards the church compound, known as Beit al-Baraka.
The 38-dunam compound has been in the spotlight since Israeli media reported in May that in 2012 the site was secretly purchased by an American millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, with the intention of turning it into a settlement outpost.
Jbour said that as the march approached the main entrance of al-Arrub college, Israeli soldiers assaulted protesters with the butts of their rifles, leaving several of them bruised.
The silent transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem
(
at +972mag)
It is no accident that eight Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem wound up beyond the separation barrier. Since annexing Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has manipulated migratory trends toward an unstated goal: absorbing the land without the people.
are many ways to test the notion of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. One could do a comparative analysis of how much the municipality invests in East and West Jerusalem — roughly 1:9. One could drive up the road that neatly divides the bougainvillea draped neighborhood/settlement of East Talpiot and Palestinian Jabal Mukaber, a model of a neighborhood excluded from the city planning process; or consider that Palestinians, nearly 40 percent of the population of the city, are second-class residents denied the right to vote in national elections. For absolute clarity, one need only look at the eight Jerusalem neighborhoods that are located squarely within the municipal borders…but relegated to the other side of the separation barrier.
Findings from Ir Amim’s comprehensive new report, “Displaced in their Own City,” reveal that at least 80,000 and possibly more than 100,000 Palestinians — between one-fourth to one-third of the entire Palestinian population of Jerusalem, linked to the city for generations by ties of family, livelihood, economics, identity, culture, and religion — now live in these abandoned enclaves. The area of Kufr Aqab and Semiramis as well as the Shuafat refugee camp, including the neighborhoods of Ras Khamis, Ras Shehadeh, and Dahiyat al-Salaam, are totally, indisputably divided from Jerusalem by a concrete wall and checkpoints, as well as the municipality’s near complete abdication of responsibility for providing basic services, safety oversight and law enforcement.
Israeli Army Demolishes 260th Structure in the West Bank in 2015
(
at Haaretz)
Rashid Dabak’s tin shack, which was torn down on Wednesday morning in the Jordan Valley village of Aqaba, was the 260th Palestinian structure that Israel has demolished in the West Bank since the beginning of the year.
The bulldozer smashed the concrete blocks, roof and tin walls, including a kitchenette and bathroom, with a few crushing blows, before continuing on down the village streets. Along with another bulldozer it destroyed six more structures in the village: the home of Khaled Subih’s family; a livestock shelter; an empty hatchery; and three agricultural shacks.
In East Jerusalem, the municipality has demolished 49 buildings since the beginning of 2015, according to figures provided by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department.
\
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners said set to join hunger strike
(
at Times of Israel)
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners on Sunday were reportedly set to join a hunger strike launched by some 120 Palestinian inmates last week, in a protest against their conditions of incarceration. The hunger strike was initiated by a group of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, who were demonstrating against Israeli searches of their cells on the day their families paid a visit to the prison.
The report came a day after the UN criticized Israel’s planned force-feeding of a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner.
Alleged Islamic Jihad activist Mohammed Allaan, held without trial by Israel under a security measure knows as administrative detention, entered the 56th day of his hunger strike on Sunday in protest over his incarceration since last November.
If carried out, the force-feeding would be the first instance of the practice in Israel since the Knesset’s adoption on July 30 of a new law that made it legal.
Married by a woman: A quiet Palestinian revolution
(
at Ma'an News)
Holding the young couple's identity cards in one hand and the Koran in the other, the Palestinian justice of the peace pronounces Thaer and Rawan man and wife.
It's an everyday scene at the Islamic sharia law court in the West Bank city of Ramallah except for one glaring difference -- the justice is a woman, the first in the occupied Palestinian territories licensed to perform Muslim marriages.
Wearing a long black robe decorated with the Palestinian flag and with a keffiyeh scarf draped over her shoulder, Tahrir Hamad, 33, is leading a quiet revolution in Palestinian society.
On July 29, she became the first, and so far the only, woman appointed as a "mazouna" -- a Muslim official authorized to carry out marriage and divorce.
Susya, the Next Outrage in the Israeli-Palestinian Dance of Build-and-destroy
(
at Haaretz)
There is a whole panoply of local and international players involved in the fate of an extended family of goat-herders who have been uprooted three times in nearly three decades, most notably in 1986 when they were forced out of their homes to make way for a large archeological dig. Trying to force the hand of the Civil Administration is an organization called Regavim, which has been petitioning the Supreme Court to uproot the village on the basis of their claim that the homes have been illegally built in Area C, the part of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli military and civilian control.
Sources close to the negotiations say the Civil Administration wants to offer the people of Khirbat Susya land on the outskirts of the large nearby village of Yatta. But for the Palestinians who live here, that simply means abdicating their land to settlers, and they’re not having it.
“We’ll die here before we’ll leave our land,” says Wedad Nawajeh, a young woman in the village.
In the case of Khirbet Susya, there is even an acknowledgement in the IDF that the land in question is privately owned Palestinian land, based an internal investigation by the State Attorney’s Office dating back to 1982. As reported in Haaretz on July 26, an internal document on this matter demonstrates Palestinian land ownership in Ottoman documents dating back to 1881. That much pokes holes in one of the key reasons the Civil Administration rejected the village’s proposed master plan: It said sufficient ownership documents had not been submitted.
The final moments of Israel's settlements in Gaza
(
at +972mag)
Among ordinary Palestinians in Gaza, I had some touching encounters. Two men in their forties who had worked most of their lives as casual laborers in Israel, before the wall and the checkpoints went up and permits to enter became almost impossible to obtain, sat with me and answered my questions in fluent Hebrew. One asked me if I knew “Avi, who owns the event hall in Petah Tikvah.” No? “Years, I worked for him.” They were glad the army and the settlers were leaving, they said, but afraid, too. They didn’t trust Mohammed Dahlan, Fatah’s strong man in Gaza, to administer the place. And they didn’t like Hamas either. Nor did they trust the Israelis. “Israel could just lock us in here and throw away the key,” observed the one who had worked for Avi in Petah Tikvah. His friend nodded. “And Gaza would become a big prison.”
As I got up to leave I asked if I could take their photos and they assented, smiling tenatively into the camera lens. But as I walked away they must have had second thoughts because they chased me down the road, calling me. “Don’t use our names,” they said. “It could be dangerous.”
As for the settlers, they seemed to have many reasons for not wanting to leave. Many of them lived in communities that resembled a suburb in southern California. Their homes were spacious and well appointed, surrounded by lush lawns and shaded palm trees. Theirs was a lifestyle that very few people living inside Israel proper could afford.
The settlers had clearly memorized certain talking points. Sometimes they appealed to the soldiers for solidarity, stressing their tribal commonalities and even hugging them or crying with them. But mostly they were enraged and completely unable to control what came out of their mouths. After listening three or four times to sobbing teenagers and to young mothers clutching their babies as they screamed at soldiers that they should be ashamed to evict Jews from their homes, that they were Nazis and traitors and how could they live with themselves, the scenes just blurred together and the sense of authenticity was lost. And after watching a bearded father turn red as he yelled that he had served years in an elite combat unit, had devoted his life to the land of Israel and look how it had betrayed him, and why don’t you immoral leftists just go back to Tel Aviv and dance in your discotheques … Well, compassion fatigue sets in pretty quickly. Especially when these same people who were demanding sympathy for their plight expressed rabidly racist sentiments about Palestinians specifically and Arabs in general — to my face, in response to very anodyne questions about the people who lived in the low-rise apartment blocks just a few minutes’ walk away.
Deputy FM Warns European Governments Against Funding Israeli Left Wing NGOs
(
at Haaretz)
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) plans to instruct the Foreign Ministry to work against funding provided by European government to left-wing organizations in Israel.
A senior Israeli official noted that in a meeting that took place Tuesday with a delegation from the European parliament and with the Dutch ambassador to Israel, Hotovely warned that should EU governments be unwilling to cooperate with the Israel in overseeing the funds' allocation, the government would put forward legislation on the issue.
Hotovely's initiative is a rehashed version of an initiative led by her predecessor in the Foreign Ministry - Avigdor Lieberman, who began leading the initiative upon entering the office. At the time, a number of diplomats stationed in Europe were ordered to tell local foreign ministries to desist from funding left wing organizations, including "Breaking the Silence".
New Dig Suggests Israelite Kingdom Wasn’t So Mighty
(
at Haaretz)
The fortifications and entrance gate to the Philistine city of Gath have been uncovered - and portray a different geopolitical picture of the biblical era, that isn't in favor of the kingdoms of David and Solomon.
Finding the wall in this part of the city makes it the largest known city during this period in the Land of Israel. Prof. Maeir estimates its size to be 500 dunams (124 acres), while Jerusalem during this period was 120 dunams – similar to other cities like Megiddo and Be’er Sheva.
According to Maeir, the discovery of Gath as a huge, fortified city on the border of Judea during an extended period, without any signs of destruction as a result of a war with Judea, proves the Philistines controlled the Judean plain. Because Khirbet Kaifa existed for a relatively short period – about 30 years – it is likely the remnant of a failure of the Israelite kingdom to spread westward and not a sign of its power.
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 weekly update on the non-violent resistance movement and the challenges confronting it.
Diplomatic negotiations and actions by armed resistance groups are covered quite widely by the mainstream press and in other diaries on DKos so they are rarely included.
We use the name Filastin, 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. Filastin 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.
XIX) August 2, 2015: Palestinian infant dies in arson attack, nine prior attacks went unprosecuted by Israel.
XVIII) July 26, 2015: Filastin: "Do you know what Obama coffee is?"
XVII) July 19, 2015: Israeli military judge says a Palestinian can defend his home, too
XVI) July 12, 2015: Citizen Odeh: The Arab leader who feels the Jews' pain
XV) July 5, 2015: Israel losing Democrats, "can't claim bipartisan US support," top pollster warns
XIV) June 28, 2015: Israel's Deputy Interior Minister: I'll seek to revoke Arab MKs' citizenship
XIII) June 21, 2015: Prisoner's hunger strike enters 48th day; Vandals torch Church of Loaves and Fish
XII) June 14, 2015: Soldiers remove Palestinians from pool in Area A so Settlers can bathe undisturbed
XI) June 7, 2015: French Telecom Executive's Remarks on Israel Incite Furor.
X) May 31, 2015: Online database "exposes" pro-Palestinian college students to "damage their careers".
IX) May 24, 2015: Soldier pays the price for criticizing the Israel army
VIII) May 17, 2015: Despite literal "smoking gun", settlers cleared of charges for shooting
VII) May 10, 2015: "Palestinians are beasts, they are not human" - new head of West Bank civil administration