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09/29/2010

New video disproves settler version of Silwan shooting

Sep 28, 2010

Adam Horowitz

From the Wadi Hilweh Information Center:

Wadi Hilweh Information Center video reveals that the testimony given by the guard who killed Samer Sarhan last week Wednesday is invalid. The video recording was aired on Israeli Channel Two News.

The killer told the Israeli police that the incident had occurred when he was trying to defend himself from a planned ambush. He claimed that the street in Wadi Hilweh where he was driving was blocked by garbage containers, and that after stopping, his Jeep did not start. He claimed that after he stepped out of the vehicle, Palestinian residents began throwing stones at him – according to the claims – and that he had to shoot to defend himself. As a result Samer Sarhan was killed.

However, the video camera which was unveiled by Wadi Hilweh Information Center clearly shows that the street was not blocked and that the killer had fled in his vehicle immediately after the shooting.

It should be noted that the Israeli police accepted the shooter’s version and released him to his home less than 24 hours following the incident. This leads the residents of Silwan to fear that the settlement guards have complete freedom to use their weapons as they deem fit.

Silwan residents often complain about the conduct of the settlement guards. For example, on June 2nd, settlers’ guards tried to disperse demonstrators despite the presence of Israeli police at the scene, wounding one of the mosque personnel, Ayoub Mazen Auda, in the leg, and attacked a photographer of Silwanic, Ahmed Siyam. To our knowledge, the guards were not arrested or tried for their assault.

Why aren’t our congressmen hearing from this victim of endless Israeli expansion?

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Now that Israel has made clear that the endless colonization process will continue, you’d think we might hear from the victims of that process.

Meet Atta Jaber, a farmer whose house outside Hebron has been destroyed four times by settlers but who rebuilds and hangs on, rarely leaving his property, because he has no choice but to defend his livelihood and ancestral lands for the sake of his children. Last week, Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions took me down to the occupied hills to meet Jaber. You see him above, standing next to his half-plowed zucchini and tomato field, left. And just past the tomatoes you can see the gas station that the Jewish colony Kiryat Arba built on his stolen land, and a hillside beyond that with settler “outposts” on it (not visible in my pic; but erected this year, Jaber says, in complete defiance of the alleged freeze).

On the way back to Jerusalem, Halper said he has continually urged American congressmen to have face-to-face conversations with Jaber, as I did– in which I asked this weathered farmer in his 40s questions about his experience and aspirations, and he answered me with eloquence and sincerity, in English. Just see for yourself. This man has greater political sophistication about the issue than just about anyone you will meet inside the Beltway. Halper shook his head over the fact that hundreds of our congresspeople visit the region at the behest of AIPAC, but never make this simple journey to see the victims of Israeli expansion. No: they sign letters saying that Israel is blameless and they put pressure on the Palestinians.

I made four videos of my visit with Jaber, and I thought it best to just post them all here, and give some descriptions of them so you can jump around and listen to this man tell you about his life.

In Video 1, Jaber points out the landscape of the occupation: the new buildings that Kiryat Arba is putting up and pouring cement for right across from him and the outpost buildings they’ve established on the bare hill to the right. And he says that just yesterday the illegal colonists tore down Palestinian grapevines. (Salim Shawamreh and Jeff Halper of ICAHD both appear on this video.)

Then Jaber explains the settlers’ motivation: state ideology and religious ideas, their deed from Abraham. As if Muslims are not also sons and daughters of Abraham. And he tells the story of his own nephew’s arrest for trying to stop the settlers from tearing out his irrigation pipes.

The best part of this video is about halfway through when Jaber tells me how afraid he is for his life and crops, and I ask him who is helping him, and he tells me: ICAHD and Rabbis for Human Rights. That’s all, folks. Later on Jaber told me that B’Tselem is also helping him, but this is the sorrow and the pity: an honest man is terrorized by Jewish religious crazies on his own land, his lands are stripped of water, in the most important political terrain in the world, and just a few brave people are helping him. But Anthony Weiner and Barney Frank and Rachel Maddow and Jerrold Nadler and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are nowhere to be seen. Oh my. This will be an exhibit in the Nakba Museum some day.

Video 2. This one’s short. You’ve heard about the separate roadways? Jaber shows me the old Palestinian road right next to his lands and then the wide settlement road that was put in, on his family’s land, stealing hundreds of acres of Palestinian land in the supposed Palestinian state. You see the roads side by side, you see Kiryat Arba across the way. And while Jaber may use that road locally, I believe that if he tries to travel any distance on it, he could be arrested.

Video 3. We were in Jaber’s house and I asked him whether he’s ever attacked a settler, and why not. I apologize for my tone now; I think violence will get us nowhere. I was shocked by what Jaber had told me about the attacks on him. Jaber repeatedly tells me this idea is not in his mind, and tells me about the dangers of taking up arms– to his own humanity and to his family. He also tells me about settlers who have been kind to him. Then at about 5:36 he starts talking about the two state solution, which he supports– if only the occupation were gone.

The highlight of this video is Jaber’s insistence that Palestinians want to be left alone to make their own future. “We are a clever people. We are not beggars. We have muscles. We have minds.” And a few millionaires too. And note Jaber’s analysis that in the years 1970-1990 or so, it was one country and Palestinians had freedom, but that Israel didn’t want one-state because it didn’t want Palestinians. In his analysis, you see the logic of the slow Judaization that is taking place across the country.

Finally, in video 4, he shows me a tomato/zucchini field from which the Israeli civil administration and water company, Mekorot, tore out his irrigation pipes. On his own land. Right next to a water meter that records how much he owes Mekorot. You can see the desiccated tomatoes.

I forgot to mention that it was after the Civil Administration tore out water pipes from Jaber’s family land in August, that we got that incredible video of the five-year-old boy screaming in anguish as his father was arrested. The boy is a cousin once removed of Jaber, who told me that his nephew, who was arrested in that video, is still in jail, two months later. What do Barney Frank and Howard Berman have to say about that? Diddly.

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Obama continues Bush policy promoting anti-democratic crackdown in the West Bank

Sep 28, 2010

Adam Horowitz

Nathan Thrall has a great article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books on an issue that has received scant attention in the US press – US support for Salam Fayyad’s anti-democratic crackdown in the West Bank.

US support has come mainly through the work of Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who has been training the Palestinian security forces being used to round up, arrest and intimidate the Palestinian Authority’s opponents. One of the most notable, though understated, points of the article is the continuity from the Bush to Obama administrations in supporting this misguided and dangerous policy.

It’s worth reading the entire piece, but here’s a snippet that describes the beginning of the project and it’s true aims:

The first United States security coordinator, Lieutenant General William “Kip” Ward, arrived in Jerusalem in March 2005. Elliott Abrams, formerly the deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, told me that Ward’s mission was organized in response to three closely coinciding events: the reelection, in November 2004, of Bush, who wanted to rebuild Palestinian security forces as a part of his 2003 road map to Middle East peace; the death, nine days later, of Yasser Arafat, who had resisted American attempts to reform the Palestinian security services; and the victory of America’s favored candidate, Mahmoud Abbas, in the January 2005 presidential election.

Ward’s mission concentrated initially on security reform but was soon limited to preparing for Israeli Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza and four northern West Bank settlements in August and September 2005.21 The withdrawal went fairly smoothly for Israel, but Ward failed to prevent violence on the Palestinian side. Settler greenhouses were looted, empty synagogues were burned, and Palestinians began fighting one another for control of Gaza.

Weeks after Dayton took over from Ward at the end of 2005, Hamas defeated Fatah in the January 2006 parliamentary elections. Overnight, Dayton’s task changed from reforming the security forces to preventing a Hamas-led government from controlling them. State Department lawyers sought ways to continue assisting the Fatah-dominated security forces of the Palestinian Authority, which would soon be led by Hamas, a group the US had declared a terrorist organization. The solution was to send direct aid to President Abbas, who was elected separately and could be considered detached from the incoming Hamas-led government and legislature. In a reversal of its longstanding policy of pressuring the Palestinian president to give power to the cabinet, the US advised Abbas to issue decrees and make appointments that would limit the new government’s rule, particularly over the security forces. Hamas reacted by establishing a security service of its own. Abbas banned the Hamas force in a decree that the cabinet then declared illegal. During the next year, Hamas and Fatah engaged in a series of violent clashes in which leaders on both sides were assassinated.

Dayton, meanwhile, was overseeing the recruitment, training, and equipping of Abbas’s rapidly expanding security forces. Khaled Meshaal, chief of Hamas’s politburo, delivered a fiery speech denouncing “the security coup” as a “conspiracy” supported by “the Zionists and the Americans”—charges Fatah denied. In February 2007, on the brink of civil war, Fatah and Hamas leaders traveled to Mecca, where they agreed to form a national unity government, a deal the US opposed because it preferred that Fatah continue to isolate Hamas. Fayyad became finance minister in the new government, despite, he says, American pressure not to join. The Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto, former UN envoy to the Quartet, wrote in a confidential “End of Mission Report” that the violence between Hamas and Fatah could have been avoided had the US not strongly opposed Palestinian reconciliation. “The US,” he wrote, “clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fateh and Hamas.”

One month before Gaza fell to Hamas in June 2007, Hamas forces attacked USSC-trained troops at their base near Gaza’s border with Israel, killing seven and withdrawing only after three Israeli tanks approached. Testifying before Congress the following week, Dayton claimed that the attack had been repulsed and denied that Hamas was on the rise—a prediction not borne out during the following weeks. “It took [Hamas] just a few days,” said Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, “to flush away a 53,000-strong PA security apparatus which was a fourteen-year Western investment.”

Though several members of the Bush administration later said that the entire strategy had been mistaken, the defeat of American-backed Fatah forces offered a rather different lesson to the small circle that had influence over the USSC. “We didn’t regard this as proof the project wasn’t working,” Abrams said, “but rather that the project was needed.”

This project has more or less amounted to an US attempt to instigate a Palestinian civil war, similar to the contra policy in Nicaragua during the 1980s (Elliott Abrams ring any bells?). The result, as Mustafa Barghouti describes it in the last line of Thrall’s article, is that Palestinians are now having to live “not [under] one occupation but two.”

What has this policy looked like on the ground? Nora Barrows-Friedman wrote in Electronic Intifada how the recent resumption of peace talks had led to an increased crackdown on activists in the West Bank. From her piece Activists face broad PA crackdown in West Bank:

“The Palestinian Authority (PA) forces came late at night and started shooting inside the camp,” Shihab said. “They came in, shooting, acting like the Israeli military. They wanted to make the people afraid. Everyone went to the main street and started throwing stones, because people thought they were the Israelis, not the PA forces.”

Shihab, who didn’t want to give his last name, is a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist political party, in Dheisheh refugee camp in southern Bethlehem in occupied West Bank. He told The Electronic Intifada that in the last few weeks, the PA’s security services have been waging a campaign of intimidation and violence inside Dheisheh, intent on what he called “destroying the unity and community within the camp.”

According to Shihab, on 31 August, PA forces attacked the camp in an attempt to find a member of Hamas hours after an armed attack by Hamas activists on a car near a settlement in Hebron during which four Israeli settlers were killed. Since then, PFLP members who intervened by negotiating with the PA forces to convince them to cease their attack and leave the camp during the subsequent clashes inside Dheisheh, have been summoned to the PA police stations and subsequently arrested and thrown in jail.

“The PA wants to defend the occupation. They want to show the Israelis that they can control the Palestinian people,” Shihab said.

And here’s a statement from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights that demonstrates the level of impunity the US-backed forces are operating with:

Abdullah Rebhi Abu Se’da, 23, and his brother Sa’eed, 17, from Nablus, were beaten and tortured while they were detained by the Palestinian National Security Forces (NSF) in Junaid Prison. They were detained on the ground of a personal dispute between Abdullah and an NSF member. Sa’eed was transported to the hospital. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) calls upon the Attorney General to seriously investigate this crime and bring perpetrators to justice.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR and the testimony of Abdullah Rebhi Ahmed Abu Se’da, 23, at approximately 21:00 on Wednesday, 22 September 2010, the NSF arrested Ahmed Rebhi Abu Se’da, 26, and his brother Sa’eed, 17, from a car wash shop belonging to Ramzi Mohammed Abu Se’da in Ras al-‘Ein neighborhood in Nablus. They were transported to Junaid prison. Later on the same day, the NSF arrested their brother Abdullah, 23, as well. Abdullah and Sa’eed were subjected to torture and beating on their feet (Falaka) several times. As a result, Sa’eed suffered from severe exhaustion, and was then transported to Nablus Specialized Hospital for medical treatment. A PCHR field worker, who visited Sa’eed at hospital, reported that there were clear blue bruises on his feet. Doctors said that he suffers from spasm of nerves and cannot breathe normally.
It should be noted that detention of the three brothers was on the ground of a personal dispute between Abdullah Abu Se’da and an NSF member that took place in the evening of the same day in the car wash shop.

‘Why would YOU want to go THERE?’

Sep 28, 2010

Warda Yusuf

This post introduces a new contributor, a young European Muslim who works in Israel/Palestine. She uses the Arabic pseudonym, Warda Yusuf, an homage to her grandfather, out of visa concerns.

There she stood in a Cambridge University debating chamber, her stutter not failing her as she cried “A ba-ba-ba-BI-national state. A democracy for ALL. A-a-a-a secular state, one founded on li-li-li-liberal values, pra-pra-pra-progressive values… and her name Mother of Exiles”. The last part almost came out as a whisper as the room of people stared at her, the reference to Emma Lazarus’s The New Colossus struck home. “Why can’t both Jews AND Palestinians have the right of return?” she whimpered. More stares. Grabbing for air, “Why can’t the Zionist project be dismantled, and instead the two groups share in each others’ diaspora poetry, the poetry of exiles, yearning a return to the motherland?”. The stares transformed into the suffocating humidity of Jaffa port on an August afternoon, and then the oppressive might of the Separation Wall.

A young idealist I was, calling for a One State solution based on equality for all citizens. The tension in that room irked me, why were people still committed to a Two State solution? It is racist and forged on a history of lies, and a refusal to recognise that before anything we are humans, yes before we are Palestinians, or Israelis, or Jews, or Christians, or Muslims, we are humans.

Yet when I arrived for the first time in the hallowed land just two months ago, it was nothing but despair that I felt and have felt every day I’ve been here since. Where was that powerful hope The New Colossus had, supposedly, etched on my spirit? The conviction with which I spoke in that debate back at university in the UK? Nowhere to be found in the Holy Land, that’s for sure.

If not actually Palestinian, being a hijab-wearing Muslim is enough to situate me in my appropriate camp before I even open my mouth here– appearance is what counts. If you tie your headscarf at the back of the neck, well done you, you get first class citizenship. If you pin it round the neck, what a shame, be prepared for some empty bus seats next to you. This ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality struck me right to the bone the moment I set foot in the country. Entering the tourist office in the Old City of Jerusalem to ask how to get to the German Colony, a suitably Israeli part of town, I was greeted with “why would YOU want to go THERE?”.

Um, how about because I thought this was a free country?

The subsequent stares on the bus and in the streets of the German Colony are enough to make me shiver at the thought of returning, for I live in East Jerusalem, where a kippah-wearing Jew is more likely to be stared at than any girl with a hijab.

This leads me onto my next point of despair regarding a One State solution. Whilst geographically speaking a Two State solution is arguably long dead, psychologically speaking the two separate worlds, if not states, are alive and well. In fact they are more than that, they are the bed rock of life here. One fateful walk from Sheikh Jarrah to the Mamilla shopping mall development took me from quiet Arab villas in Sheikh Jarrah, through the busy Arab souq of Salah ad-Din street past Damascus gate and into the heart of the Muslim quarter of the Old City. Passing the Via Dolorosa and heading into the Christian quarter, which, although still firmly Palestinian, is imbued with a Greek flavour. Coming up for air at Jaffa gate something smells odd, is it the remnants of what was an Ottoman mosque, now lovingly called the Tower of David? I’m not sure, but after a few steps (or galactic light years) I enter consumer heaven.

Ralph Lauren and Gap line the streets, Judaica boutiques are the cherry on top; classical music breathes out of the mall’s hidden mouths. Then it hits me, lo-behold a huge TopShop, a famous British fashionista outpost, stands before me, and I realise somewhere along the way I was transported from the streets of Damascus or Cairo, to what could be London or Paris. I suddenly found myself feeling very sick, what exactly had happened? What type of place is this? Jerusalem is decidedly two worlds in one space.

In fact it’s not just two sides of one city, it’s also one side seeping into, encroaching upon and smothering the other. The rapidly growing utra-right wing Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem represents a microcosm of this. Speaking to residents of the controversial settlements in Sheikh Jarrah, the Palestinians who do remain in the coveted area live in extreme fear for their livelihoods, watching large numbers being forced out of their homes in recent years. One local man stared at the sky, tears to his eyes, as he told me, almost begging me to help, that he had been to court for the third time that day, but that it was only a matter of time before they took his home, leaving him and his family with nowhere to go. Yet “they” feel rather differently about the situation. Two of the women reported that life in this area was beautiful, the best they could ask for. Within this checkerbox of a neighbourhood, the two groups, living side by side, really did inhabit separate worlds.

Was my idealism shot down? Well I certainly began to question if a One State solution is truly possible, even if politicians shook hands and “Palestrael” were created, would the residents be able to live together as equals? I’m not sure. Perhaps the establishment of a Palestinian state is a necessity, the Palestinians need to get away, move on, live in peace – by themselves. Israel as a Jewish state is here to stay, and there is no point in trying to challenge that, it will be easier and cause less hassle if the Palestinians quietly take their patch of the West Bank. Who wants to live with the Israeli Jews anyway?

Nevertheless I recall al-Ladhi yuwaswisu fee sudurin nas, the one who whispers evil in the breasts of men (Qur’an 114:5), and despite my despair I realise I cannot let myself fall into that way of thinking. That train of thought is not of one who believes every human has a soul in them, and every human wants to be heard and respected. Can I say I am a believer in humanity all whilst supporting the segregation and division of two peoples? Is this what mankind needs today? Have I not read Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities” and seen the myth of nationalism for its true colours? Maybe it is unattainable but what would man be without his hope and integrity?

I would be forgoing both my hope and integrity were I to believe in a Two State solution. Despite the despair I find myself, the severity of this situation can only strengthen my conviction of the need for a One State solution.Humans are humans first and foremost; people can and must live together. Indeed a young idealist I was and will be.

While the world sends its regrets, settlers move to evict dozens of Palestinians from E Jerusalem homes

Sep 28, 2010

Seham

and other news from Today in Palestine

* Land and Property Theft and Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing
Dozens of Arab families may be evicted from East Jerusalem neighborhood under court ruling
Judges reject appeal by Palestinians claiming to own a large plot in the western portion of Sheikh Jarrah, enabling settlers to move ahead with plans to build in the area.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/dozens-of-arab-families-may-be-evicted-from-east-jerusalem-neighborhood-under-court-ruling-1.316055?localLinksEnabled=false
Report: Settlers prep to evict Jerusalem families
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A Sunday court ruling has opened the door for further evictions of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, settlers told the Israeli press Monday. Jerusalem settler leader Aryeh King told the Israeli daily Haaretz that before the weekend, three Palestinian families would be evicted from their homes and replaced with Jewish settlers.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318772
Message to PM: Hebron Jews lay cornerstone for new preschool
Jewish settlers in Hebron mark end of settlement freeze by holding groundbreaking ceremony; move largely symbolic, project undertaken without official approval. Community leaders: Government must live up to its duties.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3960877,00.html
Foundation: Israel digging tunnels under Al-Aqsa mosque
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage on Monday said Israel is expanding the tunnel network under the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. In a statement, the foundation said Israel was digging on the northern and southern sides of the mosque, and that digging to the west of the compound extended for more than 600 meters.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318675
Vice PM: Settlement freeze was a mistake
Silvan Shalom tours Hebron as Israel’s settlement moratorium expires; knocks Palestinian request to extend freeze, saying even 10 months were ‘excessive.’
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/vice-pm-settlement-freeze-was-a-mistake-1.316006?localLinksEnabled=false
Revava Revival
Knesset member Danny Danon led two events in the West Bank celebrating the end of the construction moratorium imposed by President Benjamin Netanyahu 10 months ago. Together with Yesha Council leader Dani Dayan, and MKs Nissim Zeev and Tzipi Hotovely, Danon called for a massive expansion of the settlements.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1550
Abbas: Settlement construction will ‘force’ us to quit talks
Palestinian President reiterates threats to walk out of peace negotiations, despite U.S. efforts to mediate compromise.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/abbas-settlement-construction-will-force-us-to-quit-talks-1.316184?localLinksEnabled=false
Human Rights Watch: “Israel: Extend Settlement Freeze”
(Jerusalem) – Israel should make permanent and total the partial “freeze” on construction in West Bank Jewish settlements, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel’s construction of settlements and their infrastructure violates its obligations as an occupying power and the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, including unjustly limiting their ability to build homes and access their lands, Human Rights Watch said.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/09/26/israel-extend-settlement-freeze
UN ‘Disappointed’ at Israeli Settlement Activity
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminded Israel on Monday that the building of settlements on occupied territory was illegal, and said he was “disappointed” by the government’s failure to extend its partial ban on further West Bank construction.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2c5769052ded7a07c9db15a3fe1bcec6
World leaders decry…
World leaders express regret as Israel announces it would not extend 10-month freeze on new settlements in the West Bank.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2010/09/201092718349628699.html
US ‘disappointed’…
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_mideast_mitchell
Sarkozy condemns…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAOXbYAdOvk&feature=youtube_gdata
London ‘disappointed’…
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100927/wl_uk_afp/israelpalestinianspeacebritain

Ireland regrets…
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/28/c_13533190.htm
* Activism/Solidarity/Boycott, Sanctions & Divestment
Arabs rally: October Riots wound still bleeding
Ten years after 2000 riots left 13 Israeli Arabs dead, parents demand international community launch official probe into events.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961002,00.html
Nobel laureate detained at airport
Irish Peace Prize recipient Mairead Maguire deported after participating in May flotilla to Gaza, now arrives as member of women’s peace delegation.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961531,00.html
S. African university mulls BGU boycott
University of Johannesburg to vote on termination of collaboration agreement with Ben-Gurion University. ‘Boycott might risk activities that strengthen co-existence,’ BGU president warns.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3960978,00.html
Israel seizes Gaza aid boat
Voyage organised by European Jewish groups to condemn “collective punishment against 1.5 million Palestinians”.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2010/09/201092882030712571.html
Israelis surround Jewish boat to Gaza, force it to change course, Philip Weiss
Various sources are reporting that the “Irene,” the catamaran carrying seven Jews to Gaza from Cyprus, was intercepted this morning by several boats in the Israeli navy, apparently in international waters, and forced to make course for Ashdod, in Israel. Reuters has an Israeli gov’t spokesman complaining about the “surreal” mission to which Israeli forces were assigned today and noting the presence on the boat of a former uniformed Israeli officer, Yonatan Shapira.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/israelis-surround-jewish-boat-to-gaza-force-it-to-change-course.html
Israel Navy to use force if Jewish aid boat heading for Gaza refuses to comply
The military has been closely watching the vessel, named the Irene, since it left the port of Famagusta in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus on Sunday.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-navy-to-use-force-if-jewish-aid-boat-heading-for-gaza-refuses-to-comply-1.316047?localLinksEnabled=false
Group: Sane government won’t hinder Jewish boat
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma’an) — Israeli peace groups on Monday applauded Jewish activists on board an aid ship sailing to Gaza. In a statement, Gush Shalom applauded the courage of activists on board the Jewish Peace Boat who were “working to end the Gaza Siege and get for its inhabitants the natural right to come and go, like everywhere else in the world.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318523
Foreign Ministry: Jewish activists won’t be allowed into Gaza
Passengers on board Gaza-bound ‘Jewish ship’ will be handled like previous flotillas, officials say.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961007,00.html
500 Swiss sign up to board Freedom Flotilla 2
More than 500 activists from Switzerland alone have signed up to take part in the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla 2 convoy, which is expected to set sail to an under siege Gaza before the end of 2010.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz
Israeli ties: a chance to do the right thing, Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The University of Johannesburg’s Senate will next week meet to decide whether to end its relationship with an Israeli institution, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, on the grounds of that university’s active support for and involvement in the Israeli military. Archbishop Desmond Tutu supports the move. He explains why
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article675369.ece/Israeli-ties–a-chance-to-do-the-right-thing
SA university must reconsider Israel ties – Haidar Eid
As a graduate of the University of Johannesburg and a resident of Gaza, I find it distressing that the university has signed an agreement with Israel’s Ben Gurion University despite the policy of ethnic cleansing and the latest war crimes committed against the people of Gaza by the nation’s government
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318766
French BDS Activists Request Your Help!
The repression against BDS activists in France is reaching a new height with the prosecution of a French MP, Alima Boumediene-Thiery (member of the French Senate) who participated in a BDS action in the Paris region one year ago and who is a supporter of the BDS campaign. Her trial is due to take place in Pontoise (North of Paris) on Thursday October 14. She is accused (like all the other French BDS activists prosecuted) of “incitement to racial hatred” and “discrimination against the Israeli nation”.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occupation/2883-french-bds-activists-request-your-help-
Symposium: The New Media & the Palestine Question: Blogging Out of Conflict
Panel 1 – Changing the Public Discussion
Participants: Jerome Slater, Adam Horowitz
Moderator: Will Youmans

Addressing: How has blogging/new media affected the public debate on Israel/Palestine? How has blogging/new media responded to the Main Stream Media and vice versa? What results has this interaction had on the public discussion of Israel/Palestine?
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/EventDetails/i/14720/pid/223
Something new is happening in Palestine, David Shulman
Something new is happening in Palestine. I saw and heard things today that are relatively rare in my experience. I saw conflict erupt in the village between those who wanted to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers and generate more violence, as in the past, and the no less passionate people who intervened fiercely to prevent this from happening. I heard tough words of peace and hope. I saw the most dignified and brave demonstration I’ve ever seen. I also saw the army react with its usual foolishness, which I’ll describe, and I saw the soldiers hold back when they could easily have started shooting. It wasn’t an easy day by any means, but it was good.
http://theonlydemocracy.org/2010/09/something-new-is-happening-in-palestine/
N.Y. musicians’ union shuts down debate over Israel/Palestine, Rich Siegel
Rich Siegel has been a member of Local 802, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, for 25 years, and lately resigned. Below, his explanation, followed by his letter of resignation to the president of the union as well as to the editor of the union paper, Allegro. There has been an ongoing struggle and controversy about the publishing of letters on this issue at local 802 for awhile. It began with an article about a member bringing a music program to Palestinian children on the West Bank. The article was a human interest story which did not get into the politics at all. Even so, predictably, a Jewish member wrote in complaining about Anti-Semitism. I responded to that, as did Tom Suarez, and our letters were published.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/n-y-musicians-union-shuts-down-debate-over-israelpalestine.html
* The Siege (Gaza & West Bank)/Humanitarian/Restriction of Movement/Human Rights/Racism
Industrial Fuel – Needs Vs. Supply – Aug 29 – Sep 25
http://www.gazagateway.org/2010/09/industrial-fuel-needs-vs-supply-aug-29-sep-25/
Goods – Needs Vs. Supply – Aug 29 – Sep 25
http://www.gazagateway.org/2010/09/goods-needs-vs-supply-aug-29-sep-25/
27 Sept. ’10: 10 years to the second Intifada – summary of data
Israeli security forces killed 6371 Palestinians, of whom 1317 were minors. At least 2996 of the fatalities did not participate in the hostilities when killed. 2193 were killed while participating in the hostilities. For 694, B’Tselem does not know whether they participated in the hostilities or not. An additional 248 were Palestinian police killed in Gaza during operation Cast Lead, and 240 were targets of assassinations. Palestinians killed 1083 Israelis in Israel and the Occupied Territories. 741 of the fatalities were civilians, of whom 124 were minors, and 342 were members of the security forces. B’Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell: “Palestinian and Israeli Civilians have paid a terrible price due to the conflict. At the close of the decade, we hope to start a new chapter, in which both sides do all they can to adhere to their obligations and protect civilians from the impact of hostilities.”
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20100927.asp
* Violence/Aggression & Provocations
Palestinians killed in Israeli raid
At least three men are killed in the strike that targeted a car outside a refugee camp, near the Israeli-Gaza border.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2010/09/201092723256191228.html
Jihad says fighters not injured in airstrike
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement denied on Tuesday that three Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday night were affiliated to the faction’s Al-Quds Brigades. The dead, three young men in their 20s, were transferred to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, officials said.They were identified as Ala Abu Zbeida, Awni Abdul Hadi, and Muhammad Eid. A later statement issued by the Ansar As-Sunna, a Salafi group, said those killed were affiliated to the movement adding that “Israeli forces assassinated three militants east of Al-Bureij camp.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318848
Medics: Gaza worker shot at northern border
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – A Palestinian worker collecting stone aggregates near Gaza’s northern border was injured Tuesday when Israeli forces stationed near the Erez crossing opened fire. The worker said he was collecting rubble from an evacuated settlement before the incident.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318865
Gaza family narrowly escapes Israeli airstrike
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A Palestinian family from the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip narrowly escaped death when an Israeli drone fired a missile at the family’s home Monday night, relatives said. The shelling coincided with an airstrike on the nearby Al-Bureij camp killing three militants. Kamal Abu Shamla, an inspector in the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Education, told Ma’an that his and his brother’s family of 30 escaped death “only by a miracle” after their 3-story home was hit by Israeli missile.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318795
Riots Grip East Jerusalem, Mel Frykberg
SILWAN, Occupied East Jerusalem, Sep 27, 2010 (IPS) – Tension, the twisted carcasses of gutted vehicles, buses with smashed windows, smouldering dumpsters, streets riddled with rubber-coated steel bullets and empty cartridge cases, teargas, and air thickened with black soot from burning tyres marked the beginning of the fifth day Monday of continuous rioting in East Jerusalem.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52978
7,400 killed in decade of Mideast violence: report (AFP)
AFP – More than 7,400 people have been killed by Israeli-Palestinian violence since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising 10 years ago this month, an Israeli rights group said Monday.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100927/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflicttollrights
Detainees
Center: Palestinian rights worker detained in Silwan
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A Palestinian human rights worker was detained by Israeli police in Silwan on Monday, the director of the Wad Hilwa Information Center said. Jawad Siyam said Mahmoud Qara’in was detained near his office, and Israeli police were deployed heavily at the entrance of Silwan inspecting residents as they entered or leave. Ma’an’s reporter said Israeli police also searched several homes across the neighborhood. A spokesman for Israel’s National Police did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. A settler’s car was also set alight in the Wad Hilwa area, causing extensive damage to the vehicle.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318623
Israel soldiers injure and detain Hebron child
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli soldiers attacked and detained a 13-year-old Palestinian boy on Monday in the Ar-Ras neighborhood of Hebron, witnesses said. Locals said soldiers hit Sayel Rebhi Abu Quweder, leaving him bleeding from his forehead and with bruises on his face. The boy was then handcuffed and taken to an unknown location, residents added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318630
Israeli police detain 24 in East Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli police detained 24 Palestinians from an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday, an official said. Wad Hilwa Information Center director Jawad Siyam said several women and children in the Silwan neighborhood were briefly detained when Israeli military and police forces shut down the entrance to the Wad Hilwa area. Palestinians were prevented from entering or exiting to enable settlers to move freely in the neighborhood, Siyam told Ma’an. Entrances were closed off when clashes erupted between settlers and residents, he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318961
* War Criminals and their enablers
ICC should decide on Gaza conflict investigation
An independent report highlights the continuing failure of both the Israeli and Hamas authorities to investigate violations of international law documented by the UN over a year ago. Amnesty International has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to decide on whether it can investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 2008-9 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel. The Human Rights Council must make the same call after it considers today a report by a committee of independent experts highlighting the continuing failures of both the Israeli and Hamas authorities to investigate violations of international law that were documented more than a year ago by a UN fact-finding mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/icc-urged-decide-gaza-conflict-investigation-2010-09-27
The details of those killed on the Mavi Marmara
The following appears on pages 30 and 31 of the UN report into the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla…
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/the-details-of-those-killed-on-the-mavi-marmara.html
US criticises ‘unbalanced’ flotilla probe (AFP)
AFP – The United States on Tuesday criticised a UN probe into Israel’s storming of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, urging the Human Rights Council to prevent the report from being used to torpedo peace talks.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100928/wl_mideast_afp/israelconflictgazaunrightsflotilla
Israel’s Arab Helpers
Egypt detains 12 migrants along Israel-Sinai border
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Egyptian security forces stopped two groups of African migrants attempting to cross the border into Israel from the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, a security source said. The source said forces spotted eight migrants near the Taba crossing trying to breach the fence into Israel. “The officers hailed the migrants who submitted without resistance and were identified as Sudanese nationals from Darfur,” the source explained.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318845
* “Peace” Talks/Political Developments
Arab League: We’ll endorse Abbas’ position
Ahead of Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo next week, Palestinian president says he hopes Israel will hold off settlement-building in West Bank as long as Mideast peace talks continue, fears Israeli and Palestinian leadership may miss a ‘historic opportunity’ for their peoples.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961303,00.html

Abbas: Opposition has every right to mistrust Israel
PARIS, France (Ma’an) — President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that he did not fault Palestinian opposition factions for treating with suspicion Israeli plans for the West Bank. “There is a difference between opposition and ‘enemies of peace’,” he told reporters in Paris following a meeting with French Jewish leader Richard Prasquier. Palestinians have every right to be wary of Israel, he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=318785
Hamas says Palestinian reconciliation on the way
The Syria-based Palestinian militant Hamas leader says only minor issues remain for a full reconciliation with the rival Fatah group.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-says-palestinian-reconciliation-on-the-way-1.315979
Direct negotiations suspended
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks come to de facto halt after Israel lets settlement moratorium expire. PA says will wait until Arab League convenes before making final decision on talks’ fate.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961142,00.html
Abbas asks Netanyahu to extend settlement freeze for 3 or 4 months
De facto Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has asked Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the freeze on settlement activity for three or four months to give peace talks a chance to progress.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz
Fatah official: Israeli settlements could kill two-state solution
Expanding Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory have reached a point of no return and could kill an internationally backed, two-state solution, a top Fatah official said on Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/fatah-official-israeli-settlements-could-kill-two-state-solution-1.315997
Lieberman: Palestinians to blame for absence of peace deal
Foreign minister meets with UN chief, says the PA did not show ‘real good intention’ during negotiations this past month, though insists that direct talks should continue.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-palestinians-to-blame-for-absence-of-peace-deal-1.316035?localLinksEnabled=false
Iran the key to Middle East solution: Israel FM (AFP)
AFP – Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that Iran is at the heart of the Middle East conflict and that a settlement with the Palestinians could take decades.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100928/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestinianspeaceuniran
Netanyahu seen unlikely to accept U.S. offer for compromise in Mideast talks
Proposal aimed at solving impasse over freeze would also include U.S. guarantees on matters including refugees, security arrangements and Israel’s status as a Jewish state.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-seen-unlikely-to-accept-u-s-offer-for-compromise-in-mideast-talks-1.316046?localLinksEnabled=false
Netanyahu, Clinton hold new talks on settlement freeze (AFP)
AFP – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again Monday, after talks a day earlier, to discuss the controversial end of a partial settlement freeze.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100927/pl_afp/israelpalestinianspeaceclinton
U.S. hopes Arabs will keep supporting Mideast talks
NEW YORK, Sept 27 (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it hopes the Arab League will continue to support direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks following Israel’s decision to allow its partial settlement building freeze to expire. “We will have further conversations with key countries in the coming days and we hope that the Arab League meeting will continue to affirm its support for the process,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/WAT014663.htm
87 US Senators urge Obama to keep Abbas at talks (AFP)
AFP – Eighty-seven US Senators urged President Barack Obama on Monday to press Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas not to walk away from US-backed peace talks with Israel.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100927/pl_afp/israelpalestinianspeaceuspolitics
Rezqa blasts Abbas for letting AL decide for him
from The Palestinian Information Center – Daily News
Dr. Yousef Rezqa described de facto president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to refer the decision on resumption of Israeli settlement activity to the Arab League as an evasion of responsibility.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz
Other News
Lieberman presents plans for population exchange at UN
Controversial scheme would see part of Israel’s Arab population moved to a newly created Palestinian state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-presents-plans-for-population-exchange-at-un-1.316197?localLinksEnabled=false
Gül: Turkey told Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel
Turkey has urged the Palestinian group Hamas to stop rocket attacks on Israel and seek dialogue with Europe and the United States, President Abdullah Gül has said.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-222870-100-gul-turkey-told-hamas-to-stop-firing-rockets-into-israel.html
2 Druze suspected of spying for Syria
Majdal Shmas residents Fares Shaer and Said Abu-Zayad accused of working for Syrian intelligence service. One of them tells investigators he was asked to kidnap IDF soldier in exchange for money.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961452,00.html

Gaza’s First Female Truck Driver
Gaza, Palestinian Territory Omar Ghraieb – In Gaza city, you’ll rarely see a woman riding a motorbike, bicycle or car, and you definitely won’t see a woman riding a truck. Gaza city has a small, closed and conservative society, where traditions and religion control residents’ lives and social relations. Women in Gaza often get the brunt of it, complaining that they aren’t allowed to exercise equal rights and freedoms. But all that might be slowly changing.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7020039385?Gaza%E2%80%99s%20First%20Female%20Truck%20Driver
* Analysis/Opinion/Human Interest
U.S. Coalition Says Palestinians Unfairly Pressured to Remain at Table
WASHINGTON – September 27 – The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation today criticized the Obama Administration for pressuring the Palestinians to remain at the negotiating table despite Israel’s open refusal to end its illegal settlement activities. “Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law,” said Executive Director Rob Mosrie. “It makes no sense to force Palestinians to continue to sit down with Israel to negotiate a supposed two-state solution to the conflict while Israel continues to colonize and ethnically cleanse the very territories that are ostensibly designated for a future Palestinian state.” According to Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, the administration is “making clear to the Palestinians that we do not believe that it is in their interest to walk out of the talks.” “The Obama Administration is wrongly arm-twisting the Palestinians to remain at the negotiating table while Israel consumes more Palestinian land,” said National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/09/27-9
‘A one-state solution in Israel is difficult but not impossible’, Ilan Pappe

The official historical narrative of Israel had been that when Israel was founded in 1948 the Palestinians voluntarily left the land and Israel had the right to take over their possessions. We are a few historians who after researching Israeli, British and UN archives found that Israel had systematically dispossessed the Palestinians, expelling one million in 1948, which was half the Palestinian population. This is ethnic cleansing, a crime and imposes responsibility on Israel. The fate of these refugees is at the heart of the Arab-Israel conflict. I support their right to return to Israel.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/interviews/A-one-state-solution-in-Israel-is-difficult-but-not-impossible/articleshow/6632677.cms

What Obama should tell his Middle East team, Stephen M. Walt
I’m sure most of you are “shocked, shocked” to hear that the Israeli government rejected U.S. requests that it extend the so-called freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. Never mind that it wasn’t a real freeze (i.e., it didn’t stop existing projects or the expulsion of more Palestinians from East Jerusalem, etc.); the partial halt in new authorizations did have a certain symbolic value. By refusing to extend it, the Netanyahu government has shown that it cares more about continuing the 43-years-and-counting process of colonization than it does about achieving a final peace deal.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/27/settling_for_more_settlements
Gareth Porter on Mavi Marmara UN Fact-Finding Mission
US historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter has written a comprehensive summary of the OHCHR’s investigation into Israel’s deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara in May. Israel had responded to the report earlier by calling it “biased, politicized” and conducted with an “extremist approach.” (Watch Mavi Marmara survivor Ken O’Keefe’s response to the Israeli accusations here.)
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/09/28/gareth-porter-on-mavi-marmara-un-fact-finding-mission/
Contradiction in Washington Prevents Peace in the Middle East, Osamah Khalil
Israel’s ten-month “freeze” on settlement building, declared under pressure from the Obama administration last November, is set to expire this month. James Cunningham, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, reportedly warned European envoys that direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians were on the verge of collapse over the settlement freeze. While attention has focused on whether the freeze will continue, few have asked if it was ever truly in force.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/osamah-khalil/post_936_b_739254.html
A Test of Israel’s Character, Roger Cohen
At a dinner hosted by American Jewish leaders for the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, I was seated with a senior U.S. diplomat to my left, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization to my right, and Abbas opposite. It was like listening to a rousing peace overture as an ominous leitmotif of disaster keeps returning with ever greater insistence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/global/24iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
U.S. Saves Talks but Not Palestine
Netanyahu’s ability to stare down both the Palestinians and Obama made for another of those “there-goes-Palestine” moments. This is the third time that Obama has been steamrolled by Netanyahu.
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=7370&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Syriacomment+%28Syria+Comment%29
Oren: Colonization benefits Palestinians, Matthew Taylor
A howler from today’s NYT story about the expiration of the so-called settlement freeze: Israeli officials said that Mr. Netanyahu felt it important for his credibility not to extend the moratorium beyond 10 months., “It is a read-my-lips moment,” said Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States. “This establishes credibility, not just for the Israelis but for the Palestinians. Establishing that the man is true to his word is going to be a very important asset going forward.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/oren-colonization-benefits-palestinians.html
NPR ombud says Israel lobby was ’successful’ in changing coverage, Susie Kneedler
Last week on a local call-in show on WOSU, Ohio, NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard virtually boasted about NPR’s giving into “pro-Israeli” pressure: “NPR is not as much criticized for its Middle East coverage as it was back in 2002, which it was attacked quite strongly by a pro-Israeli group. And that group was in many ways successful, and as a result NPR went back and re-evaluated the coverage and how things are handled and started doing things a little differently….”
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/npr-ombudsperson-says-israel-lobby-was-successful-in-changing-coverage.html

CAMERA will release motheaten lions to gobble up ‘Jewish defamers of Israel’, Philip Weiss
CAMERA, the Israel lobby group, is having a conference in two weeks at Boston University with a whole session devoted to “Jewish Defamers of Israel” and three speakers on the subject, including Alvin Rosenfeld of Indiana University who 3 years ago gave us all a hernia with his American Jewish Committee report equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. This time he’s talking about Jews at Sea. Maybe he is talking about the Jewish boat to Gaza? Or people like me, hopelessly unaffiliated, married to shikses/shaigitzes, out of touch with our roots?
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/camera-will-release-motheaten-lions-to-gobble-up-jewish-defamers-of-israel.html
Why I protested AIPAC (and what brought me to that point), Russ Greenleaf
I’m not anti-Israel. I’m not a self-hating Jew. When Israel launched the Gaza war in 2008, I was a member of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom. We were committed to working politely within the Jewish community, promoting a two-state solution, stressing our pro-Israel credentials, refusing to do street protests. The Gaza war was a wake-up call for me, and for thousands of other Jews. I was jarred by the sight of white phosphorus exploding over Gaza – the most densely populated place on earth. White phosphorus shells made in the USA, fired by the Israeli army. White phosphorus – the incendiary chemical weapon that burns flesh down to the bone – banned for use against people, even against soldiers. Now it was being used against Palestinian children. An illegal weapon. A terror weapon. Right on my TV screen – video evidence that Israel was committing war crimes.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/09/why-i-protested-aipac-and-what-brought-me-to-that-point.html
Shame, Jeff Pozmantier
I should be ashamed. At least that’s what an emailer told me through the bravery of his Internet connection. What radical action did I take? What offensive remark did I make? Apparently, my offense was sending an invitation to a discussion about J Street conducted by Dan Kohl, J Street’s political director. Netanyahu can meet with Abbas, Abbas can meet with Jewish community leaders in New York, and Israel can conduct back door negotiations with Syria and Hamas. But, I should be ashamed because I asked fellow Jews to meet with a pro Israel, pro two state Jewish organization whose tactics are questioned by the emailer? Do we stop supporting the ADL because we disagree with their mosque/community center position? Should we not support AIPAC because they received funding from Madoff and had two people accused of espionage?
http://palestinenote.com/blogs/blogs/archive/2010/09/26/shame.aspx
How U.S. Jews Strangle Peace Talks, Peter Beinart
What would it take to make American Jewish groups admit that an Israeli prime minister is not serious about peace?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-27/us-jewish-groups-help-make-palestinian-state-impossible/?om_rid=DKP5Im&om_mid=_BMoI6iB8U3WXOQ
American Islamophobia, Inextricably Linked with Support for Israel, Alex Kane
One of the themes that has arisen from my blogging lately on Israel/Palestine and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States is the close connection American Zionism has with the existence of Islamophobia and anti-Arab attitudes here. You can see it in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s opposition to the Park51 Islamic community center in lower Manhattan; in how intertwined the opposition to the Park51 project is with big-wig Zionists’ funding; and in the alliance between far-right groups, who see the Israel/Palestine conflict as a key battle in the fight to end “Islamism,”and right-wing Zionists like Pamela Geller.
http://alexbkane.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/american-islamophobia-inextricably-linked-with-support-for-israel
On Edge In The Holy Land
Israel, Hizballah, and Syria are all readying for a new conflict – and threatening regional upheaval. Hizballah can hit anywhere in Israel with many more projectiles, Syria has new Iranian Scud missiles, and Israel has positioned troops and armaments along its northern border.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1549
MJ Rosenberg: Netanyahu to US: Drop Dead
Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a clear message to President Obama when he ignored the US request to extend the settlement freeze to keep the US-sponsored negotiations going. It was “drop dead.” His statement came in his decision to end the settlements freeze which the Palestinians have said must be extended if they were to keep negotiating. Prime Minister Abbas says that he has not decided what to do now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/netanyahu-to-us-drop-dead_b_740380.html
Israeli Raid on Gaza Flotilla: Revealing UN Rights Council Report, Richard Lightbown
Following Israel’s raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May, the UN Human Rights Council elected to establish an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law. On 23 July the three-person Mission was appointed. It consisted of Chairman Karl Hudson-Phillips, retired Judge of the International Criminal Court and former Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago; Sir Desmond de Silva, former Chief Prosecutor of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone; and Ms Mary Shanthi Dairiam, a specialist on international women’s rights. They were assisted by a large team including external specialists in forensic pathology, military issues, firearms, the law of the sea and international humanitarian law. The Mission began work in Geneva on 9 August and an advanced unedited edition of its report was published just over six weeks later on 22 September.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16292
No Closure without Addressing the Nakba, Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Facts that cannot be denied regarding the Palestinian-Israeli issue: the conflict did not start in 1967; Arab Palestinians constituted seventy-five percent of the total population and owned around 94.2 % of the land in Palestine by the end of the Mandate in 1948; and majority of the Palestinians today are refugees scattered throughout the world. Israel insists that nothing that occurred prior to 1967 will ever be negotiable, and the present negotiations view the conflict as having started in 1967. The Israelis must be held accountable, legally, financially and morally for the crimes they committed against the Palestinians in 1947-48. There cannot be a closure to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without addressing the crimes perpetrated by the Israelis, the massacres, the ethnic cleansing and the confiscating of the Palestinians’ lands and properties.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16291
Reasoning Against Peace, JONATHAN COOK
With the resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank yesterday, Israel’s powerful settler movement hopes that it has scuttled peace talks with the Palestinians. It would be misleading, however, to assume that the only major obstacle to the success of the negotiations is the right-wing political ideology the settler movement represents. Equally important are deeply entrenched economic interests shared across Israeli society. These interests took root more than six decades ago with Israel’s establishment and have flourished at an ever-accelerating pace since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 war.
http://www.counterpunch.com/cook09282010.html
Breaking Israel’s Stranglehold over American Foreign Policy, Maidhc Ó Cathail
“The American people must learn that Israel is and always has been a strategic liability that has done immense damage to the United States and its worldwide interests,” concludes the former CIA officer.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26466.htm
Stopping the Crazy, Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
The other night on the Oprah Show, Jon Stewart, America’s comedy sweetheart, announced he was hosting a “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington DC next month. The rally, he surmised, was for the silently busy majority of Americans who could finally make their voices heard to the less sane minority that is ruling their country. “Seventy to 80 percent of the people in this country are reasonable, nice individuals, may disagree on principle on things, but could come up with rational compromises, could accomplish things, could get things done, could live with the results. And then the other 15 to 20 percent of the country run the place,” he quipped. In Israel, America’s other sweetheart, the same could be applied. Two days ago, the so-called 10-month moratorium on settlement construction came to an end. Jewish settlers took to the streets in celebration. In Revava, a West Bank settlement, settlers released 2,000 balloons symbolizing the number of housing units that will be immediately constructed. “Today it’s over and we will do everything we can to make sure it never happens again,” one joyous settler said.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=22630&CategoryId=3
Are they Done Thanking Bloomberg?
It seems American Muslims might finally be done thanking Bloomberg for his support for the Park 51 project. He can now lay off some of the extra staff he had to hire a few weeks ago to accept the abundance of gratitude that overwhelmed his office.
http://ikhras.com/2010/09/1536/
* Lebanon
Israel collaborator given hard labor life sentence
BEIRUT: Head of the Permanent Military Court, Brigadier Nizar Khalil, demanded on Monday a life sentence of hard labor for a man charged with collaborating with Israel. Detainee Haitham Nayef al-Zaher was stripped of his civil rights after being charged with collaborating with the Mossad, providing it with information on Lebanese and Syrian military and civil sites and entering Israel without a permission.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=119751#axzz10lcuLlJJ
Political deadlock in Beirut as Tribunal row drags on
BEIRUT: Both Hizbullah and the Future Movement remained committed to their stances regarding to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) as the Cabinet refrained from tackling the issue of false witnesses and the funding of the UN-backed tribunal on Monday.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=119753
Travel advice to Lebanon not altered – US Embassy
BEIRUT: The United States Embassy denied on Monday media reports suggesting it had altered its travel advice to American citizens in Lebanon, less than a week after an article erroneously claimed it had asked its compatriots to leave the country.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=119757
Lebanon’s Ground Zero – more democratic than the US
“There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.” These are the words of US politician Newt Gingrich.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=119747
Why Palestinian refugees in Lebanon support violence rather than peace talks
With little faith in Israeli-Palestinian talks, and largely unable to integrate into Lebanon, many Palestinian refugees see violence as the only way to secure their ‘right of return.’
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/PqM8bzvVu2Y/Why-Palestinian-refugees-in-Lebanon-support-violence-rather-than-peace-talks
* Iraq
Monday: 9 Iraqis Killed, 26 Wounded
As if the political deadlock over the premiership did not already stoke sectarian tensions in Iraq, the Interior Ministry has now ordered the demotions of hundreds of Sunni police officers. Meanwhile, the violence continues. At least nine Iraqis were killed and 26 more were wounded across the country, while a sniper wounded a U.S. soldier in Amara.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/09/27/monday-9-iraqis-killed-26-wounded-2/
IRAQ: Mysterious killings continue to shake Baghdad
Baghdad’s scourge of mysterious killings continues almost seven months after a national election that has so far failed to produce a government. Assailants regularly target their victims with silencer pistols or small bombs. In the latest such attack, a police officer was gunned down in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Khadra on Monday morning, according to police sources. On Sunday, gunmen with silencers killed a civil servant from the cabinet. Also killed in other attacks were an official from Iraq’s anti-corruption commission; a lieutenant colonel in the police’s counter-terrorism unit; and an army major, police said. In a separate attack, a state television announcer was wounded when assailants planted a bomb on his car Monday. Another state television announcer was killed a few weeks ago in a near-identical attack.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/09/baghdad-silencers-and-bombs-shake-city.html
Iraq Shi’ites Miss Deadline on Government Leader
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A Shi’ite-led political bloc missed its own deadline on Monday to choose a nominee for prime minister, continuing a stalemate that has left Iraq without a new government 6-1/2 months after an inconclusive election.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=71523f0d2649503f547238b607842a5b
* Iran

Iran says it killed 30 militants behind bomb attack
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had killed about 30 people who were the “main elements” behind a bomb attack in northwest Iran.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/sns-iran-blast,0,7943926.story
Iran defense chief: Russia unreliable
The Iranian defense minister says Russia’s “reneging” on an agreement to supply Tehran with the S-300 missile defense system indicates the Kremlin is untrustworthy, Press TV reported.
http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/1756742.html
Israel Suspected in Worm Sabotage of Iran’s First Nuclear Plant
The worm has spread to over 10,000 computers in Indonesia. Computers in the U.S. have also been infected.
http://www.dailytech.com/Israel+Suspected+in+Worm+Sabotage+of+Irans+First+Nuclear+Plant/article19726.htm
The President and I (a must watch interview of President Ahmadinejad), Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
I was pleasantly surprised when my request for an interview with Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president was accepted. President Ahmadinejad has never shied away from being heard, but these interviews had been exclusive to prominent mainstream media personalities such as Larry King and Charlie Rose. However, it was the mainstream media’s projection of Mr. Ahmadinejad that always remained questionable.
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2010/09/president-and-i-must-watch-interview-of.html
Ahmadinejad to throw stone towards Israel
London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reports Iranian president planning symbolic gesture during upcoming visit to Lebanon.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961362,00.html
Why Doesn’t the US Talk to Iran?, ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH and KARLA HANSEN
The unrelenting diplomatic and geopolitical standoff between Iran and the United States is often blamed on the Iranian government for its “confrontational” foreign policies, or its “unwillingness” to enter into a dialogue with the United States. Little known, however, is the fact that during the past decade or so, Iran has offered a number of times to negotiate with the United States without ever getting a positive response from the U.S.
http://www.counterpunch.com/zadeh09272010.html
* Afghanistan

Afghans say civilians died in raid
Residents of village in Laghman Province say they fired on NATO forces in self-defense during the Sunday raid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiI-TdJwSjA&feature=youtube_gdata

Mistrial Declared In Case Of Two Blackwater Contractors Accused Of Murdering Unarmed Afghan Civilians
(AP) – A federal judge has declared a mistrial in the case of two former Blackwater contractors accused of murdering two unarmed Afghan civilians and wounding a third man in Kabul. WAVY-TV of Norfolk reported Monday that the jury came up deadlocked after several days of deliberations. A new trial date was set for March 1. Justin H. Cannon and Christopher Drotleff face life in prison for the shootings on May 5, 2009, when they were in the country to train the Afghan National Army. They were working for North Carolina-based Blackwater Worldwide, which changed its name to Xe (zee) Services.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/27/blackwater-case-mistrial_n_740486.html
US soldier faces murder charges
Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, from Wasilla, Alaska, will face charges on Monday of premeditated murder in the deaths of three Afghan civilians, assaulting a fellow soldier and “wrongfully photographing and possessing visual images of human casualties”.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/20109274360444411.html
US Soldier Describes Thrill Kill of Innocent Afghans
Confession Video: Corporal, 22, Tells How His ‘Crazy’ Sergeant Allegedly Murdered For Kicks, Collected Body Parts.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-soldier-describes-thrill-kill-innocent-civilians-afghanistan/story?id=11732681
Army censors photos of Afghan corpses in ‘kill-for-sport’ trial
Evidently worried about a repeat of the anger aimed at US forces over photos of torture at Abu Ghraib prison, the US military is restricting access to photos of Afghan corpses in the “kill-for-sport” trial of five US soldiers.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/army-censors-photos-kill-for-sport-trial/
3 Australian soldiers face serious charges after 5 children killed in Afghanistan operation
The special forces soldiers, who were not identified, face multiple charges including manslaughter, dangerous conduct, failing to comply with a lawful general order and prejudicial conduct, Brigadier Lyn McDade, the director of military prosecutions, said in a statement.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-as-australia-afghanistan,0,2304661.story
Afghan poll body orders vote recounts in 7 provinces
Afghanistan’s election body has ordered a partial recount of votes from seven of the country’s 34 provinces on suspicion of fraud, potentially delaying the results of a parliamentary poll further, an official said on Monday.
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE68Q19X20100927
Afghan ‘vote-rigging videos’ emerge
Amateur footage appears to show fake votes being filled in as border police tasked with stopping poll fraud look on.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/09/201092614267602479.html
Spreading Democracy in Afghanistan, DAVE LINDORFF
US-led forces in Afghanistan sure did a bang-up job this week at promoting the concept of Western “democracy.” The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the puppet intelligence agency of the Afghan government, between them, arrested and held three journalists. Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelance reporter for Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, Mohammed Nader, a staff correspondent and cameraman for Al Jazeera, and Hojatullah Mojadadi, an Afghan local radio station manager, were all held without charge for the “crime” of allegedly having developed contacts with the Taliban. Nekzada and Nader were held by US forces for three days. Mojadadi was held by Afghan authorities for six days.
http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff09272010.html
* U.S. and other world news

Report: US seeks online spy powers
The Obama administration wants to be able to intercept all forms of online communication, the New York Times reports.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/americas/2010/09/2010927162223438280.html
U.S. should be able to shut Internet, former CIA chief says
Cyberterrorism is such a threat that the U.S. president should have the authority to shut down the Internet in the event of an attack, Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-internet-security,0,4054676.story
FBI Raids Seen as Political Retribution
Recent raids by federal agents on the homes and offices of peace activists are being viewed by civil libertarians and civil society groups as further proof that the U.S. is morphing into a “surveillance state” where the right to privacy and other constitutional protections are being quietly whittled away. On Sept. 24, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the Minneapolis homes of five antiwar activists, the office of a Minneapolis antiwar group, and the Chicago homes of the head of an Arab-American organization and a prominent peace activist.
http://original.antiwar.com/fisher/2010/09/27/fbi-raids-seen-as-political-retribution/
Syria says interested in peace talks with Israel
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet in New York. State Department says Damascus ‘very interested’ in pursuing Israeli-Syrian peace.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961144,00.html
US warns Syria against destabilizing Lebanon, Iraq (AFP)
AFP – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Syria on Monday against taking destabilizing measures in either Iraq or Lebanon, during talks with her Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem in New York.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100928/pl_afp/ussyriairaqlebanondiplomacy
Egyptian tycoon jailed for murder
An Egyptian tycoon is given 15 years in jail for ordering the killing of a Lebanese pop singer in a retrial, after earlier being sentenced to death.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-middle-east-11427153

Remembering the godfather of Pan Arabism
Fond memories of Gamal Abdel Nasser, 40 years after his death. His radio oratory transfixed listeners, reawakening a fading pride.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100928/NATIONAL/100929427/1042/rss

www.TheHeadlines.org

Walt & Mearsheimer should rename their book, ‘They’ve Got Us by the Short and Curlies’

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

As years pass, the Walt and Mearsheimer thesis grows stronger and stronger, less arguable. The Israelis gobble more colonized territory, threatening the trickle of a process that Obama has started, and what does the Senate do?

87 Senators sign a letter pressuring Mahmoud Abbas!!! Letter is dated Sept. 24, and says nothing about colonization, but describes all the Arab “enemies of peace” and outrageous acts of violence. Liberal beacon Barbara Boxer and Pennsylvania Dem Robt Casey are lead signatories. The Cable:

The senators sent the letter (PDF) to Obama on Monday. It stated that “Neither side should make threats to leave just as the talks are getting started,” a thinly veiled reference to Abbas’s multiple statements that he would leave the talks if the moratorium was not extended.

N.Y. musicians’ union shuts down debate over Israel/Palestine

Sep 28, 2010

Rich Siegel

Rich Siegel has been a member of Local 802, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, for 25 years, and lately resigned. Below, his explanation, followed by his letter of resignation to the president of the union as well as to the editor of the union paper, Allegro.

There has been an ongoing struggle and controversy about the publishing of letters on this issue at local 802 for awhile. It began with an article about a member bringing a music program to Palestinian children on the West Bank. The article was a human interest story which did not get into the politics at all. Even so, predictably, a Jewish member wrote in complaining about Anti-Semitism. I responded to that, as did Tom Suarez, and our letters were published.

This began a fire-storm of responses, a couple were published, and then the union decided to stop publishing letters on the subject, so no rebuttals, and nothing at all on the subject for several months. With a new administration in place at the union, I was able to get a letter published asking members to respect BDS. Another fire-storm.

Another member, cellist Aaron Minsky, organized a letter writing campaign, not to disagree with me, but to shut down all mention of Israel in our union paper. He succeeded. The union published one letter as a rebuttal to my letter, and is now refusing to publish any letters on the subject at all. Additionally no further articles relating to Palestine have been published after that one article two years ago. I don’t know whether this is a matter of policy or not.

It should be noted that this paper regularly features articles on political issues, regularly publishes letters to the editor on political issue, and endorses candidates. An entire issue was dedicated to the endorsement of Obama prior to the 2008 election.

To the Editor:

I am writing to notify you of my decision to resign from local 802 effective immediately. As I have been a member since 1984 with one short interruption, as I have served on the hotel committee, and as for many years I was busy working on local 802 contracts, I think my contributions to the local warrant your publishing my statement about my reason for resigning.

In the June issue Tino Gagliardi stated the following: “We have a very long and proud tradition of printing in Allegro almost every letter – if not every single letter – we receive.” He went on to state that he would not be publishing any more letters about the Israel/Palestine situation. Subsequently he has refused to publish a very relevant letter written by member Tom Suarez, which Tom has brought to my attention.

If an open forum in a union paper is referred to as a “proud tradition” then what possible reason could there be for limiting it in regard to one issue? Perhaps because up until now, union positions have been easy. Just stay to the left and you’re safe. Support civil rights, oppose wars from Vietnam to Iraq, oppose apartheid South Africa. But here is this nasty Israel/Palestine issue which has people who identify as “progressive” at odds with each other, and many of the people on one side are people from my background: Jews, the survivors of the holocaust, people whom you don’t want to offend because of past history.

The pro-Israel line is heard everywhere. I grew up deep inside it, as a former teenage Zionist youth group president, and remained with it as an adult, as former house pianist at the Plaza Hotel in Tiberias, Israel. But many of us have investigated the issue and are no longer satisfied with what we have identified as the propaganda-filled mythology we were raised with. This is particularly relevant today as our country gives Israel $15 million per day while our economy is in the toilet, and while Israel is urging us to attack Iran, after having encouraged us to invade Iraq.

By failing to allow discourse in Allegro about the controversy, local 802 is betraying the core purpose of a union: to protect the weak from the abuses of the powerful, and it has done this on three levels: 1) by failing to address a human rights emergency, 2) by failing to allow discussion about solidarity with foreign workers by not patronizing those who abuse them, and 3) by failing to protect the rights of our own colleagues to not be shouted down by aggressive members.

Instead of cutting off discourse on Israel/Palestine, local 802 should be discussing the possibility of participating in BDS (boycott,divestment,sanctions) as some unions have done, and should be discussing making a statement and taking a stand on this issue. Instead, you are caving in to members who want to shut down people like myself and Tom, and as such you will be their union, and not mine.

Rich Siegel

Zionists did BDS

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Observant Jews are celebrating the holiday of Sukkot this week, celebrating the journey to Jerusalem. During festival rituals, the observant use an esrog, a type of citron fruit. And yes, I had to look it up! How’d I learn about esrogs? From the following passage in the novel, A Simple Story, by the late Israeli writer S.Y. Agnon (who won the Nobel Prize in ’66). The story is set in Galicia, a section of Poland/the Ukraine in which Agnon grew up. The passage describes a train ride by the novel’s hero Hirshl Hurvitz, back home from a loonybin to his native city, Szybusz.

[T]here was no need to entertain Hirshl on the way, for a train ride to Szybusz, especially in the month of Elul, was entertainment in itself. The passengers, it turned out, were divided into four camps. The first of these, a party of esrog dealers on their way back from Greece, was in a bellicose mood. Why, to think of the weeks they had just spent running around that land of unscrupulous cutthroats without tasting a Jewish meal or hearing a Jewish prayer in order to bring Jews esrogs for Sukkos–and here the local Zionist press had the gall to attack them and blacken their names! The Zionists in the car shouted back that any Jew buying or blessing citrons from Corfu when Jewish farmers were sweating blood to grow the same fruit in Palestine was an out-and-out anti-Semite. At this point the fray was joined by a band of Hasidim, some of them returning from taking the baths and others on their way to their rabbis for the High Holy Days: anyone purchasing an esrog from Palestine, they yelled, was himself doing business with anti-Semites, which was what the irreligious Jewish farmers there were.

Jewish passengers to Gaza said to be detained in Ashdod, shaken but OK

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Update: We just got word that Lillian Rosengarten and other passengers on the Jewish boat to Gaza are being held in Ashdod, Israel. “Shaken but OK.”

Various sources are reporting that the “Irene,” the catamaran carrying seven Jews to Gaza from Cyprus, was intercepted this morning by several boats in the Israeli navy, apparently in international waters, and forced to make course for Ashdod, in Israel. Reuters has an Israeli gov’t spokesman complaining about the “surreal” mission to which Israeli forces were assigned today and noting the presence on the boat of a former uniformed Israeli officer, Yonatan Shapira.

The press release from the boat organizers:

Last contact with the boat’s captain, Glyn Secker, was at 0937 GMT, when their path had been cut off by a Destroyer. Recent reports from other news sources indicated that the boat has been surrounded and boarded.

At this point they were less than 20 miles from Gaza’s shore. Since then all phones went dead. The occupied Gaza Strip’s territorial waters end 12 nautical miles from shore, but the Israeli blockade is enforced at 20 miles from shore. Israeli attorney Smadar Ben Natan who is representing the passengers has asked to see her clients immediately. Local group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has asked for permission to send an independent doctor to visit the passengers immediately, after hearing from organizers that at least one passenger suffers from serious chronic health problems and is in need of medical care.

Speaking from London, a member of the organizing group, Richard Kuper of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, has condemned the Israeli army’s apparent action and said that this boat and its fate are a symbol of the chances for peace in the region. The way it is being treated by Israeli authorities indicates that they have no real intentions of reaching peace, he said. He called for worldwide support for the boat and its message of protest against the siege of Gaza and the occupation.

This from the Jewish boat itself a few hours ago:

LATEST FROM THE BOAT:

An Israeli destroyer is cutting off their path. Another small boat is also approaching.

Several small boats and a frigate are stationary aboat a mile away from Irene.

The army hailed them and said they can not go to Gaza, which is restricted and Irene’s passengers will be legally liable, especially the Israelis.

The frigate then moved closer while the small boat is now crossing their path too – it has machine guns front and back of it.

NOVANEWS

09/29/2010

New video disproves settler version of Silwan shooting

Sep 28, 2010

Adam Horowitz

From the Wadi Hilweh Information Center:

Wadi Hilweh Information Center video reveals that the testimony given by the guard who killed Samer Sarhan last week Wednesday is invalid. The video recording was aired on Israeli Channel Two News.

However, the video camera which was unveiled by Wadi Hilweh Information Center clearly shows that the street was not blocked and that the killer had fled in his vehicle immediately after the shooting.

It should be noted that the Israeli police accepted the shooter’s version and released him to his home less than 24 hours following the incident. This leads the residents of Silwan to fear that the settlement guards have complete freedom to use their weapons as they deem fit.

Why aren’t our congressmen hearing from this victim of endless Israeli expansion?

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Now that Israel has made clear that the endless colonization process will continue, you’d think we might hear from the victims of that process.

I made four videos of my visit with Jaber, and I thought it best to just post them all here, and give some descriptions of them so you can jump around and listen to this man tell you about his life.

Then Jaber explains the settlers’ motivation: state ideology and religious ideas, their deed from Abraham. As if Muslims are not also sons and daughters of Abraham. And he tells the story of his own nephew’s arrest for trying to stop the settlers from tearing out his irrigation pipes.

Finally, in video 4, he shows me a tomato/zucchini field from which the Israeli civil administration and water company, Mekorot, tore out his irrigation pipes. On his own land. Right next to a water meter that records how much he owes Mekorot. You can see the desiccated tomatoes.

If you appreciate this on-the-ground reporting from Israel/Palestine – please donate to Mondoweiss today.

Obama continues Bush policy promoting anti-democratic crackdown in the West Bank

Sep 28, 2010

Adam Horowitz

Nathan Thrall has a great article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books on an issue that has received scant attention in the US press – US support for Salam Fayyad’s anti-democratic crackdown in the West Bank.

It’s worth reading the entire piece, but here’s a snippet that describes the beginning of the project and it’s true aims:

What has this policy looked like on the ground? Nora Barrows-Friedman wrote in Electronic Intifada how the recent resumption of peace talks had led to an increased crackdown on activists in the West Bank. From her piece Activists face broad PA crackdown in West Bank:

“The PA wants to defend the occupation. They want to show the Israelis that they can control the Palestinian people,” Shihab said.

And here’s a statement from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights that demonstrates the level of impunity the US-backed forces are operating with:

‘Why would YOU want to go THERE?’

Sep 28, 2010

Warda Yusuf

This post introduces a new contributor, a young European Muslim who works in Israel/Palestine. She uses the Arabic pseudonym, Warda Yusuf, an homage to her grandfather, out of visa concerns.

Um, how about because I thought this was a free country?

The subsequent stares on the bus and in the streets of the German Colony are enough to make me shiver at the thought of returning, for I live in East Jerusalem, where a kippah-wearing Jew is more likely to be stared at than any girl with a hijab.

While the world sends its regrets, settlers move to evict dozens of Palestinians from E Jerusalem homes

Sep 28, 2010

Seham

and other news from Today in Palestine

Afghans say civilians died in raid Residents of village in Laghman Province say they fired on NATO forces in self-defense during the Sunday raid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiI-TdJwSjA&feature=youtube_gdata

Remembering the godfather of Pan Arabism Fond memories of Gamal Abdel Nasser, 40 years after his death. His radio oratory transfixed listeners, reawakening a fading pride. http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100928/NATIONAL/100929427/1042/rss

Walt & Mearsheimer should rename their book, ‘They’ve Got Us by the Short and Curlies’

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

As years pass, the Walt and Mearsheimer thesis grows stronger and stronger, less arguable. The Israelis gobble more colonized territory, threatening the trickle of a process that Obama has started, and what does the Senate do?

87 Senators sign a letter pressuring Mahmoud Abbas!!! Letter is dated Sept. 24, and says nothing about colonization, but describes all the Arab “enemies of peace” and outrageous acts of violence. Liberal beacon Barbara Boxer and Pennsylvania Dem Robt Casey are lead signatories. The Cable:

The senators sent the letter (PDF) to Obama on Monday. It stated that “Neither side should make threats to leave just as the talks are getting started,” a thinly veiled reference to Abbas’s multiple statements that he would leave the talks if the moratorium was not extended.

N.Y. musicians’ union shuts down debate over Israel/Palestine

Sep 28, 2010

Rich Siegel

Rich Siegel has been a member of Local 802, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, for 25 years, and lately resigned. Below, his explanation, followed by his letter of resignation to the president of the union as well as to the editor of the union paper, Allegro.

It should be noted that this paper regularly features articles on political issues, regularly publishes letters to the editor on political issue, and endorses candidates. An entire issue was dedicated to the endorsement of Obama prior to the 2008 election.

To the Editor:

Rich Siegel

Zionists did BDS

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Jewish passengers to Gaza said to be detained in Ashdod, shaken but OK

Sep 28, 2010

Philip Weiss

Update: We just got word that Lillian Rosengarten and other passengers on the Jewish boat to Gaza are being held in Ashdod, Israel. “Shaken but OK.”

The press release from the boat organizers:

Last contact with the boat’s captain, Glyn Secker, was at 0937 GMT, when their path had been cut off by a Destroyer. Recent reports from other news sources indicated that the boat has been surrounded and boarded.

This from the Jewish boat itself a few hours ago:

LATEST FROM THE BOAT:

An Israeli destroyer is cutting off their path. Another small boat is also approaching.

Several small boats and a frigate are stationary aboat a mile away from Irene.

The army hailed them and said they can not go to Gaza, which is restricted and Irene’s passengers will be legally liable, especially the Israelis.

The frigate then moved closer while the small boat is now crossing their path too – it has machine guns front and back of it.

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Afghans say civilians died in raid
Residents of village in Laghman Province say they fired on NATO forces in self-defense during the Sunday raid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiI-TdJwSjA&feature=youtube_gdata

Remembering the godfather of Pan Arabism
Fond memories of Gamal Abdel Nasser, 40 years after his death. His radio oratory transfixed listeners, reawakening a fading pride.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100928/NATIONAL/100929427/1042/rss