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.
Some of you may think the Israeli separation barrier is complete, that is not the case. Pieces are still under construction, with cases in the Israeli courts over the route.
Israeli-Palestinian Peace Is Dead and Both Sides Killed It
(
Opinion at Haaretz -- Carlo Strenger)
Irish conflict researcher Padraig O’Malley says that neither side has the will to reach the two-state solution, and I am inclined to agree.
The world has grown tired of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Twenty-two years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, the very term “peace” is fraught with despair, ridicule and anger both among Israelis and Palestinians, and with tiredness of those who have spent much time and energy to reach this elusive goal.
As time went by, the accounts and analyses became more bitter and desperate. Benny Morris, the left-wing doyen of the so-called New Historians, who unearthed Israel’s role in the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, has made a radical right-turn and no longer believes that Palestinians want peace. And Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University and long-time peace activist wrote his depressing “What is a Palestinian state worth?” in which he calls on fellow Palestinians to cease fighting for two states: Israeli Jews, he believes, are too traumatized to give up control over the West Bank, and Palestinians should just insist on civil rights and a life with dignity.
O’Malley’s conclusion is obvious from the book’s title: He thinks that neither side has the will to reach the two-state solution, and that the Israel-Palestine conflict is there to stay indefinitely. Toward the end of the book he relates that friends who had read the manuscript told him that he couldn’t simply publish the book without any indication of hope and advice. In response he writes: “But why should I be so presumptuous as to dare to provide a vision for people who refuse to provide one for themselves, not just in the here and now, but in the future, too? For people who have no faith in the possible? Who themselves believe the conflict will take generations to resolve? Who are content to live their hatreds? Who are so resolutely opposed to the slightest gesture of accommodation? Who revel in their mutual pettiness? Why delude you into thinking that there is a magical bullet?”
Palestinian Christians clash with Israeli police over separation wall
(at Ma'an News)
Palestinian Christians clashed with Israeli border police near Bethlehem Wednesday after dozens of demonstrators, including priests, gathered to protest renewed work on Israel's controversial separation wall in the Christian majority town of Beit Jala. An AFP journalist said the protesters, who were joined by a few foreign activists, gathered in Beit Jala to protest building a stretch of the wall, which started Monday, after years of legal battles.
The three Roman Catholic priests tried to pray among olive trees that bulldozers and mechanical diggers were seeking to uproot but were stopped by police. One demonstrator was arrested as he tried to plant an olive sapling in front of the excavators. Police wrestled with protesters who chanted, "Israel is a terrorist state. It doesn't scare us."
There has been fierce opposition from the local Palestinian Christian community,which has enlisted papal support, regarding the area of the wall that approaches Beit Jala and the adjacent Cremisan Valley. The case grabbed special attention when the wall was slated to separate Cremisan monastery from the neighboring convent and vineyards.
Photos: Dozens of olive trees uprooted to build separation wall
(
at +972mag)
The Israeli Defense Ministry renewed its efforts to build a section of the separation wall in the Bethlehem area this week, sending bulldozers and Border Policemen to uproot dozens of olive trees in Wadi Ahmed, on the outskirts of Beit Jala.
The plan is to completely enclose Bethlehem and the surrounding villages — closing all entrances to the area — by the separation wall. Entire areas of the separation wall have yet be built, including in southern Jerusalem; they are slated for completion in the coming years.
“The role of the wall here is very simple: to cut off Beit Jala from Wadi Ahmad, an agricultural area of 3,500,000 square meters with thousands of olive trees,” Mazen Qumsiyeh , a veteran Palestinian activist, told +972. “Building this part will complete the ghettoization of Bethlehem. The route has nothing to do with security — the entire goal is to annex the valley.”
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Not About Religion
(
Opinion at Haaretz - Khaled Diab)
My own reading of the situation is that what we have in Israel-Palestine is essentially a secular-nationalist conflict over land, injustice and, to a lesser degree, identity. This is demonstrated in the PLO charter. While the document repeatedly mentions the words “Arab,” “Palestinian” and “nationalism,” it does not once refer to religion. The nearest it comes is to mention a “material, spiritual and historical” connection with Palestine.
The second most important political force in the Palestinian struggle after Fatah was, for decades, the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded by George Habash, who was born into a Christian family. Many of its members were atheists, the remnants of which tell their “comrades” in Hamas that “paradise is in this life, not the next,” and say “Palestine is paradise.”
Similarly, political Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl, was a secular agnostic and perhaps even an atheist. Israel’s founding generation was anti-religion and convinced that Judaism as a faith was on the verge of dying, as the veteran peace activist Uri Avnery recalls.
Diab then goes to to make some interesting observations on the partition of India and the relationship between ethno-nationalism and religion.
Never enough evidence to convict 'price tag' attackers
(
at +972mag)
At the end of July, the Be’er Sheva District Court acquitted Aharon Sadigorsky, Nethanel Klarman, and Yehiel Lex over the burning of Mahmoud Arnan’s car in the West Bank village of Al Asja near Hebron. They were also charged for spray-painting the words “price tag” and “congratulations Effi” on a nearby wall. The three were acquitted after the court ruled that the nationalist crime unit of the Samaria and Judea Police Department failed to provide evidence connecting them to the arson.
Acquittals happen, but this one is particularly galling. One of the accused was arrested while wearing a ski mask; all three were in a car that did not belong to them; the vehicle contained a plastic bottle containing fuel, stones in a sack, a crowbar, gloves, a can of black spray paint, a bag of nails, and a realistic, plastic replica of an M-16 assault rifle. The court stated that it “does not trust the testimonies of the accused, which aside from being late [i.e. provided only in the court court, not to police – YZG] seem to be coordinated and make no sense.” None of this was not enough to convict them.
Thousands of Israeli Arabs Can't See Gaza Relatives Because of New Israeli Restrictions
(
at Haaretz)
Jihad Sheikh Yusef, a Palestinian born in the Gaza Strip who has lived in Lod with his Israeli wife since 1987, has been waiting for 13 years to see his four brothers in Gaza. Since 2002 he has asked the army’s Coordination and Liaison Administration repeatedly for a permit to visit them, but to no avail.
Sheikh Yusef, 49, has four children. He says one of his brothers has serious heart problems, and he fears that if he isn’t allowed to visit Gaza soon, he won’t have the chance to say goodbye.
On July 16, aided by Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, he applied again to the coordination administration. On July 30, the administration responded that “due to the security situation in the Gaza Strip, the GOC Central Command has ordered a temporary curtailment of Israelis going to the Gaza Strip, aside from specific cases entailing exceptional, unique and urgent circumstances.” Consequently, it continued, his request was rejected.
High Court freezes Palestinian hunger striker's administrative detention
(at +972mag)
After more than 65 days of hunger strike Israel’s High Court of Justice froze Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad Allan’s administrative detention order Wednesday evening. According to Haaretz, the court order does not release Allaan from administrative detention, but rather freezes the order for the period of his treatment in Barzilai Hospital. When his condition stabilizes, Allan may petition authorities to be transferred to another hospital. The response to that will be at the discretion of the court.
The High Court’s decision comes two days after the state rejected a petition to drop the administrative detention orders, saying instead that it would be willing to release Allan on the condition that he be deported and live outside of the country for a period of four years.
Allan, 31, a lawyer from the area of Nablus, has been held by Israel in administrative detention since November 2014. According to the Shin Bet, he is accused of being a member of Islamic Jihad, and poses a danger to the security of the state. However, as an administrative detainee, he is neither put on trial nor does he have the right to be made aware of the evidence held against him by the state.
Palestinian rights groups note that deportations of prisoners may well be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the forcible transfer and deportion of people from an occupied territory. Between 1967 and 2013 more than 650,000 Palestinians were detained by Israel.
Palestinian Hunger Striker Proves Israel Only Understands Force
(
Opinion at Haaretz - Gideon Levy)
How ironic: only as Mohammed Allaan lay dying did he become strong enough to force the state to release him.
Hunger-striker Mohammed Allaan’s doctors do not know if the brain damage he suffered is irreversible; the damage to the State of Israel and its image is most certainly irreversible. Responsibility for Allaan turning into a vegetable for the rest of his life, and maybe even his death, is on Israel’s security and justice establishment. They bear the blame; they are the ones who played with his life with terrifying cynicism. Allaan’s blood is on the heads of those who sentenced him to a long jail term without trial, no less than it is on the heads of those who delayed criminally in negotiations over his release, even when he was deathly ill.
It was not Allaan’s life that worried the state and most of its citizens – as far as they were concerned he could have died a long time ago, and with him all the administrative detainees – but rather the damage to Israel’s image and the danger that his death would spark a conflagration in the territories that kept the decision-makers up at night. The media discourse over Allaan, as he hovered between life and death, between moments of lucidity and eternal dementia: an almost diabolical discourse, without a shred of compassion, the slightest humanity, in the face of a man fighting almost to the death for the freedom to which he is entitled.
US presidential candidate says West Bank not occupied during visit
(at Ma'an News)
US presidential contender Mike Huckabee said during a visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday that he did not consider the West Bank occupied by Israel. The Republican and Baptist minister, a regular visitor to Israel, attended a fundraiser for his campaign on Tuesday at an illegal Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are viewed as illegal under international law and are major stumbling blocks in peace efforts as they prevent a contiguous Palestinian state. Huckabee said he had no qualms about holding the fundraiser at Shiloh in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognized by the international community.
The ex-governor of the southern state of Arkansas who has also hosted a Fox News channel program said he considered the Palestinian territory part of Israel. "I don't see it as occupied," Huckabee told journalists. "That makes it appear as if someone is illegally taking land. I don't see it that way."
It's Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid
(
Opinion at Haaretz - Bradley Burston)
I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country's settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply.
I'm not one of those people any more. Not after the last few weeks.
There was a
diary on this opinion piece earlier in the week.
Corruption in Palestine: A self-enforcing system
(
at Ma'an News)
As many as 81% of the Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory believe there is corruption in Palestinian Authority institutions according to a recent survey, perceptions reinforced by the recently launched annual report of the Palestinian Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN), the Transparency International chapter in Palestine. These perceptions persist despite former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s much-touted state-building efforts to root out corruption - and are at variance with international reports finding that suggest improvement in good governance.
Tariq Dana makes the case that corruption is structural to the Palestinian body politic and pre-dates the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. He argues that the problem needs to be tackled at its roots and cannot just be addressed through conventional measures used in other countries, particularly against the background of prolonged Israeli colonization and occupation and the way in which Israel both reinforces and exploits corruption.
Patron-clientelism also contributes to the climate of corruption by favoring incompetent loyal political constituents and excluding skillful people on an arbitrary basis. It thus fosters rivalry among clients who compete to demonstrate their loyalty to the ruling elite. Corruption is further reinforced because one way in which patrons reward loyal clients is by tolerating their financial malfeasance.
The PA public sector currently employs over 165,000 civil servants who are fully dependent on salaries guaranteed by international aid to the PA. The security sector is the largest with 44 percent of total PA employment, and it absorbs between 30-35 percent of the PA annual budget, thus exceeding other vital sectors such as education (16 percent), health (9 percent) and agriculture (1 percent).
In Israel, It's Four States for Two Peoples
(
Opinion at Haaretz - Yoel Marcus)
We talked to Sadat, we talked to Assad and to Arafat. We’ll probably end up talking to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and to Iran’s leader Khamenei as well. Maybe even with Obama. Certainly with Hamas.
Headlines Only
- PA, Iran discuss appointment of ambassador to Palestine (Ma'an News)
- Typhoid outbreak strikes Palestinian refugee camp in Syria (Haaretz)
- 9 Palestinian refugees drown as boat capsizes off Turkish coast (Ma'an News)
- Why My Jewish-Israeli Son Speaks Mainly Arabic (Haaretz)
- The story behind the viral 'apartheid' photo (+972mag)
- J Street U Has Not Crossed a Red Line in Appointing a Muslim President (Haaretz)
- Netanyahu's Responsibility for Jewish Terror (Haaretz)
More stories below the orange separation wall:
IDF Destroys 22 Bedouin Structures in West Bank, Leaving 79 Homeless
(
at Haaretz)
The Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria on Monday destroyed 22 huts and animal pens in Bedouin communities near Ma’aleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem, leaving 79 people, including 49 children, homeless and their flocks without shelter in the searing heat.
According to United Nations data, this is the largest number of West Bank Palestinians to lose their homes in one day since October 31, 2012.
Israeli court orders demolition of football field in Silwan
(
at Ma'an News)
An Israeli court has ruled to demolish a football field and its facilities in occupied East Jerusalem, a local committee said Thursday. The owners of the property, located in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, received a demolition order in the mail over 70 days after the court had passed the ruling at the beginning of June, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center said.
In 2012, the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority demolished several of the family's facilities under the pretense of “removing trash," he added.
Israel often demolishes Palestinian owned structures, condemning property to establish
nature preserves which in
later years can be
turned into
housing complexes exclusively for Jews.
+972mag posted a video on How Palestinian land becomes an Israeli national park
Palestinians, settlers clash in West Bank
(
at Haaretz)
Violent clashes erupted on Saturday morning between dozens of settlers and about 150 Palestinians near the West Bank outpost of Esh Kodesh. According to the Israel Defense Forces, both sides threw stones at each other, and the Palestinians tried to torch fields near the outpost, situated south of Nablus.
Ghassan Douglas, a Palestinian Authority official, said the clash broke out after dozens of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers working their fields in the nearby village of Qusra on Saturday morning. A group of Palestinians from the village then set out toward the outpost.
A litmus test for the American Jewish left
(
at +972mag)
In the Bay Area, grantees of the San Francisco Jewish Federation may not hold public events with organizations that consider Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) a legitimate movement. This policy bars public panel events with speakers from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a vocal advocate for selective boycotting of companies profiting from the occupation.
If you agree with certain forms of boycott, you’ve failed the test. And if you want to be seen as legitimate by the institutional Jewish community in the Bay Area, this is a test you must pass.
However, there is also another side to this dynamic.
In some radical spaces, to only partially support the movement or to feel ambivalent about academic boycott is seen as a kind of betrayal. If you are not pro-BDS, you are subject to scorn.
Only a Radical Change in Direction Can Prevent Next Intifada
(
Opinion at Haaretz - Gideon Levy)
Aha, the “war against terror.” Herzog will be “more extreme than Netanyahu.” He will prevent a third intifada.
If the leader of the opposition still thinks that a popular uprising is suppressed by force, that a “process” is sufficient to stop such an uprising, if he doesn’t propose a revolutionary change of values and perceptions – what do we need all this for? We’ve had more than enough of this species.
And even in order to present a left with a security-oriented facade we don’t need Herzog – former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is already warming up on the ropes, in the role of the most desperate hope that the left has ever invented. The general of Operation Cast Lead, the man without (known) opinions, who has never said anything about anything, he is the great and only hope of the moderate camp in Israel. Can you believe it? Why Ashkenazi? Because he’s the only one with a chance to bring down Netanyahu. And why bring down Netanyahu if we’ll get Ashkenazi?
And until the propitious time arrives and Ashkenazi hatches from the egg, Herzog will play Ashkenazi’s role. He will be the commander of the left’s anti-terrorism unit. He will threaten, he will eliminate enemies, he will promise “an uncompromising war.”
Israeli forces open fire at memorial for slain infant in Susiya
(
at Ma'an News)
Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinian and foreign activists on Friday during a memorial in the village of Susiya south of Hebron for 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha who was killed in an arson attack by Israeli settlers on July 30, a spokesperson from the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee told Ma'an. No injuries were reported.
During the memorial, activists and local children were flying kites above a nearby illegal Israeli settlement when Israeli soldiers in the area responded with opening fire at the kite flyers, a PSCC spokesperson told Ma'an.
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.
XXI) August 16, 2015: Jimmy Carter: "Zero chance of the two-state solution"
XX) August 9, 2015: Father of toddler dies of injuries sustained in arson attack
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