I'm switching the format with this post, let me know what you think...
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.
17,641 nights into the Occupation
In a newly revealed 1976 interview, Yitzhak Rabin is on camera saying West Bank settlements are "comparable to a cancer" and will lead to "apartheid". So Rabin joins Ben-Gurion and Barak as the Israeli PM using the dreaded A term.
Haaretz reports that the Israeli army still has ten open investigations into theft or destruction of property by IDF soldiers in the West Bank during last year's search for the three missing teenagers. Many of the 30 reported incidents involve soldiers taking cash, jewelry, computers and electronics from Palestinian homes. Amos Harel reports on how the IDF has turned a third of the West Bank into closed military zones. These are off limits to Palestinians but in a number of cases settlers build and farm on the land. During the regular Friday demonstrations near Nablus, IDF soldiers were filmed assaulting two AFP journalists who were wearing vests clearly marked PRESS.
Israeli soldiers shot Hadeel al-Hashlamon, an 18 year old Palestinian woman in Hebron ten times at a security barrier this week. The IDF claims she had a knife and threatened the soldiers with it. Photos and eye-witness accounts by bystanders contradict these claims. Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man asks why she wasn't arrested, and why soldiers who do not speak Arabic are being sent to police a Arabic-speaking population under occupation.
Noam Rotem notes that the IDF has killed hundreds of Palestinian children over the past few years, but never issued an apology, even when it acknowledges an error. +972mag notes that the IDF has apologized numerous times, for killing non-Palestinians in error. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem city council has decided to hebrewize street names in East Jerusalem.
A public opinion poll suggests support for a two-state solution among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has fallen below 50% and support for Abbas has dropped below 40% over the summer. PA forces also broke up a protest that was organized to protest the excessive use of force against three Palestinian teenagers participating in a rally last week.
The Shin Bet has made numerous arrests of Palestinians accused of throwing rocks and firebombs, including at least 11 children. At the same time, they refuse to arrest the suspected perpetrators of the Duma firebombing which killed an 18 month old and his parents.
A former Shin Bet chief notes that Netanyahu's proposal to permit open fire rules against Palestinians throwing stones would create a "revenge atmosphere" and lead to escalating violence. Other Likud MPs are advocating for the collective punishment of entire families by withholding health and other benefits if children throw stones. No word on whether this will apply to the Jewish stone throwers. Those throwing rocks at Palestinians are notoriously difficult to find and identify, presumably because all the police has trouble telling settlers apart. The Israeli cabinet unanimously passed authorization to use live fire and four year mandatory sentences for anyone throwing stones at Israelis.
More stories below the orange separation wall:
Opinions between the river and the sea
Haaretz Op-Ed contributors let loose with a torrent of dissatisfaction and repentance over Yom Kippur.
Chemi Shalev delivers a characteristically erudite missive on American politics, complete with perceptive comments on the Native American party (also known as the Know Nothings), Joe Biden's great-grandparents and anti-semitism on the far right. He asks whether they'll come for the Jews once they're done with the Mexicans. Peter Beinart writes about naked bigotry towards Muslims during the GOP primary. He took major organizations to task for their tepid response and asked American Jews to imagine Carson/Trump were talking about Jews.
Sefi Rachlevsky writes about racism and dehumanization in Israel, which he believes is deeply rooted in the experience of oppression, tracing it to a "child crying into its pillow". Yossi Sarid wrote about shame at Israel's unwillingness to take in refugees from the region, while it sells weapons with abandon and sends its soldiers to arrest children. He ends with this:
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced that Germany would not limit the number of refugees to enter. “The right to political asylum has no limits on the number of asylum seekers,” she said. Suddenly they sound like Jews, and we sound like Germans.
To counter that, Benny Ziffer warns against the
danger of selective compassion and relates his own family's history of flight to Austria from the disintegrating Ottoman empire, only to return to Turkey once Nazism was ascendant. Nehemia Shtrasler
dismisses the one-state solution as a fantasy that will inevitably lead to civil war given the tribal nature of humans.
Anshell Pfeffer says James Corbyn's victory in the leadership election for the Labor party raises the prospect of Israel becoming a partisan issue. It has of course been one since last year's House of Commons vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood. Pfeffer writes about Corbyn's association with European anti-semitism (I have not explored these links in depth, but have been told there is some truth to them):
Corbyn has tried to explain his calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” as an attempt to include all sides in a dialogue toward creating peace in the region. But there is no record of him ever engaging in a similar way with the Israeli side. Corbyn claims to abhor all forms of racism and anti-Semitism, but his blind spot on any issue concerning Israel — or the United States for that matter — means he’s oblivious to racism when it comes from his own ideological camp.
Seth Frantzman is deeply engaging on
the dark narrative of Israel's Rhodesia fantasy in +972mag. He argues that fears of being outnumbered by Palestinians, "Oriental Jews", orthodox Jews, and assorted others have kept secular Zionists up at night for decades and warped Israel.
Mohammed Abbas warned of a third intifada following continued clashes at the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount complex. Israel registered a protest after Abbas said Jews were sullying the complex "with their filthy feet" while lionizing the Palestinian protestors/rioters.
Ron Ben-Tovim opines on his view that some portion of Israeli society is constantly on the lookout for threats and this year they seem to have settled on stone-throwing by Palestinians. The title provocatively suggests Israel is one stone's throw from becoming the Roman Empire.
Tilting at Windmills
Reuven Rivlin continues his one man act for Arab-Jewish co-existence. He's asking fellow right wing politicians to advocate for Arab-Jewish harmony and not cede the issue to the left. Abaas joined his calls.
The IDF will permit the export of additional goods from Gaza for sale in Israel, in a bid to help improve economic conditions in the strip. Agricultural products were allowed in for teh first time since 2007.
Hamas' deputy foreign minister gave a lengthy speech blasting Palestinian leaders for their factionalism and lack of unity. The speech is titled "Now I understand how and why the Palestinians lost Palestine", which he suggests is because:
In short, because Palestinians lost two of their national pillars: strategic vision and national consensus. Hence, their paths diverged. They moved – or let us say dissipated – to opposing areas that drained their energies and deflated their abilities. They moved between temporary and permanent solutions, between the PA and resistance, between the PA and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), between the statehood project and the liberation project, between strategy and tactics, between legitimacy and illegitimacy, they got lost between reconciliation and division…
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:
XXIII) September 20, 2015: The best hope for change on the West Bank? Keep those cameras rolling
XXII) August 23, 2015: Palestinian Christians and Priests clash with Israeli police over separation wall
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