Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

• Don’t lose heart. This struggle is a long one

• Impounded US boat to Gaza

• A despairing conversation with an Arab friend at the Four Seasons

• This is the Freedom Ride of our era

• Shorter Israeli consul-general: ‘I don’t know any details and have a great day’

• ‘LA Times’ fails to state that ‘law prof’ writing that Gaza siege is legit is ex-IDF Lawyer

• Alice Walker on the ‘many impediments orchestrated by the Israeli gov’t’

• Despite many setbacks, US boat did damage to Israel’s public image

• 70 cyclists committed to ‘bikes without borders’ are prevented from going into Hebron’s Old City

Don’t lose heart. This struggle is a long one

Jul 02, 2011

Ahmed Moor

Evidently, the Israelis and Americans (and the French and Germans?) have succeeded in pressuring the failing Greek government into preventing the flotilla from sailing. As Medea Benjamin pointed out earlier, this likely has a lot to do with Greece’s sovereign debt crisis.

While many of us feel angry, it’s probably best not to direct our anger at the Greek government. After all, here is a coalition which has surrendered its sovereign decision-making process in order to secure a few more billion stopgap dollars. And for all its troubles – for the hot humiliation of being dictated to – the Papandreou government will likely still be “restructured.” The average Greek deserves our sympathy for the years of economic and social pain they’re in for (probably, the average EU citizen too).

Collectively, it’s important for activists to remember that the flotilla isn’t a goal unto itself. The main objective here is to draw attention to numerous Israeli violations of international law (chiefly, ghettoizing a people through collective punishment for racial difference). The dedicated activists on the Gaza-bound ships are risking their lives to publicize the human rights and needs of the Palestinians in Gaza. That’s where the focus ought to remain.

The main project at hand is working towards a just solution to the conflict, which I believe means overcoming Zionism. All indications suggest that we’re succeeding at an astonishing pace (remember, W&M and Carter’s book were published only five years ago).

The recent Michelle Goldberg review of Lisa Baron’s book is representative of the kind of progress that we’re making. Goldberg (and the post here which highlighted the review) both noted that Baron feels compelled to fellate the Republican Party because she’s a Zionist.

What’s more interesting, however, is that Goldberg (I’m guessing that she’s Jewish, but I may be wrong) locates Zionism as a distant phenomenon, something away from her.

She writes about the “the perversity of the Zionist alliance between hawkish Jews and the Christian right.” Her words and framing suggest that she herself is set apart from Zionism – that it’s something deviant Republicans are into.

I may be taking too much from words that are particularized and non-generalizable; I don’t know Goldberg personally. But she is a writer for the liberal(ish) Daily Beast who locates Zionism distally. More importantly, she doesn’t make any obvious attempt to reclaim Zionism for the left. I believe the trend will continue; Zionism is the hole where Shelly Adelson hunkers down with Rudy Giuliani to scare small children.

But back to the flotilla: It is far from a foregone conclusion that the flotilla has been successfully undermined by Obama and Netanyahu. I’m hopeful that it will still sail.

We must recognize however, that the flotilla may not sail.

It is easy to feel powerless, helpless and small when faced with the combined power of large states and supranational institutions, particularly when they’re subordinated to nefarious personal ambitions and special interests. But this is not the time lose heart.

The Palestinian struggle is a long one. The Palestinian people have experienced heartbreak after setback after shocking disappointment for generations now.

And yet, the struggle continues. Indeed, Palestinian resilience is a hallmark of the struggle. Our struggle will continue for the foreseeable future; this won’t get any easier.

In the nearer term, the Papandreou government will fail. The special-interest automatons occupying the dining rooms of the Four Seasons on both sides of the Atlantic will fail. That’s partly because activists will double, redouble, and treble their efforts. But it’s also because the Obamas of the world are hollow and cynical: shiny trinkets do not comprise a value system.

We are driven by the unyielding belief in justice, above all. We are unmovable. And we will prevail.

Impounded US boat to Gaza

Jul 02, 2011

Philip Weiss

The US Boat to Gaza published the picture above of its impounded vessel today.

I’m in a desperate mood today. Two tweets sum it up:

From Saree Makdisi: So: armed struggle is out; international law is out; ICJ is out;UN is out; aid flotillas are out; negotiations are out; what is left?

From JVP:

pers @ NY Greek Consulate told JVP supporter “It’s your government [US] that ordered us not to let the ship sail!” link to twitter.com

A despairing conversation with an Arab friend at the Four Seasons

Jul 02, 2011

Philip Weiss

Two days ago in New York’s Four Seasons hotel, I met a sophisticated friend from the Arabian peninsula whose identity I must disguise, and we had a grim conversation. He made a number of points:

–The situation in Israel/Palestine is very bleak. There is no way out. The Israelis have the power, and they will continue to make life intolerable for Palestinians in the occupied territories, until those who can leave, leave. And of course the educated Israelis are also all leaving…

–The U.S. still has the power over Palestine’s future, as it did in 1948. Empires are built slowly and they collapse slowly. The U.S. is the hegemon for the foreseeable future. And when it comes to Israel, there is no countervailing force to American support for Israel. Europe is nothing. The Arab world is nothing. The nations of the General Assembly are nothing. The non-Zionist movement inside the U.S.– come on, it is very small.

–We (Arabs) always told the U.S. that we can’t abandon Palestine because it is an issue of our identity. This we have explained for 70 years. Palestine is part of our identity, it cannot be subjugated. We have also explained that if the Palestinians accept a two-state solution,  we would accept it. Would we accept an Israeli Jerusalem? Of course not. We can’t; Jerusalem must be shared.

–You (Mondoweiss) are naive about power.

Morality means nothing without power. Yes, you talk about the civil rights movement, inside your country. But that was a domestic frame. In the international frame, there is only power. These countries talk about the International Criminal Court for Gadafyi and for Bashar al-Assad, but you will never see a prosecution of an Israeli or an American for war crimes. Because who has the  power.

–For supporters like myself of Arab liberation, freedom in Palestine was always a necessary but insufficient condition. Not until the subjugation of Palestine ends can the Arab world be liberated. The other condition is of course the end of the dictators. The Egyptian revolution is not a revolution yet. The regime has not been changed. And this is everything. Egypt is everything for the Arab world. If the Tunisian revolution succeeds, and Egypt fails, Tunisia does not matter.

–I admit that I did not foresee the Egyptian uprising. I have studied Arab politics forever and I was completely surprised. Maybe I will also be surprised by Palestine. But everything has failed for the Palestinians. Violent resistance failed. Negotiation failed. What do they have left? Yes I have always called for nonviolent resistance to create a democracy between the river and the sea, I was against Oslo. Because what do they get: Fayyad. They must elect a collaborationist government for their own occupation.

–You say the Israel lobby is a special interest. I disagree. I have lived in Washington. A special interest is not as integrated into the cultural and political life as this lobby is. Jews are an integral part of the American establishment. The media– the top layers are well over 50 percent Jewish. The political class? Finance? You have the complete integration of people who are indoctrinated in Zionism.

–Of course, you are not a Zionist. I can’t tell you how much I like what the Jewish non-Zionists and anti-Zionists are saying. But you are such a small group. I will tell you the ones I can’t stand. The liberal Zionists. I have more respect for the hard core Zionists, they tell you what they want. All the liberal Zionists do is whine and do nothing. Look at the New York Review of Books. But that man Daniel Levy interests me. I think that at his heart he is no longer a Zionist.

I (this is Weiss talking now) told my friend that Levy’s path (his brave statement at J Street earlier this year, “I’m not convinced that [the two-state solution] is the only model”) is one that many other American Jews are following. And we will be part of the countervailing force in American politics that will end the lobby. You can’t maintain a regime of anti-Arab racism in American life for 70 years (one that has been so costly to Americans, from the USS Liberty to the killing of Bobby Kennedy to Rachel Corrie to the Palestinian motivation for the 9/11 attack) without changing the channel. History moves. We are going to have another chapter. American realists are on our side, the military thinkers are on our side, Arab-Americans…

Of course when I got home, I saw the grim news from the flotilla and recognized that the US still runs the table here, and we are all prisoners of the Israel lobby. And as for my friend’s social understanding about the nature of the Establishment, well, I share it: Jews are empowered as never before, and Obama’s fears about the pro-Israel-Jewish presence in the Democratic Party make it impossible for him to be fair in this arena. And all this leaves me feeling only greater urgency about the need to end the fever of Zionism inside American Jewish life.

This is the Freedom Ride of our era

Jul 02, 2011

annie

I’m crying over this video. 193 hits, Let’s push it. It’s not over til the fat lady sings

Shorter Israeli consul-general: ‘I don’t know any details and have a great day’

Jul 02, 2011

Philip Weiss

From Democracy Now, an interview with the Israeli consul-general. I’ve cut out a lot of the talking points, and this is what you get:

AMY GOODMAN: Is Greece working with the Israeli government in stopping the flotilla from taking off?

IDO AHARONI: Look, I’m not familiar with the details of what is happening exactly between, as you know, I am positioned here in the United States, and I can tell you that we are very happy on the public position taken by a number of countries in Europe as well as the U.S. administration that contends that the very idea of flotilla is a provocation, unneeded one, illegitimate one.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Consul General, this issue, the statements that financial links have been uncovered between Hamas and the flotilla organizers, could you elaborate on that?

IDO AHARONI: Well, I don’t know enough details on that as well…

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the Israeli newspaper Maariv, which quoted several unnamed members of Israel’s security cabinet as saying the army’s claims were media spin and public relations hysteria, saying security cabinet ministers were given no such information when they were briefed on the flotilla this week. That is, information about arms, about chemical use that’s expected, anything like that.

IDO AHARONI: I don’t really know, what more do you need than the living proof of 45,000 rockets shelled on to innocent civilians, children, women, the elderly?…

JUAN GONZALEZ: Consul General, the organizers of the flotilla have raised these issues that several of their ships have been sabotaged, and they believe that Israel would be the only one who would be interested in doing that and they believe Israel is behind it. Can you say publicly that Israel has not been involved in any kind of sabotage attempts on these ships?

IDO AHARONI: Look, this is the most irrelevant question, whether the ships were sabotaged or not. The entire idea of the flotilla is unneeded, not necessary, and it is not legitimate. ..

AMY GOODMAN: So, Consul General, you are not denying responsibility for sabotaging these boats?

IDO AHARONI: Well, I don’t know the details. I have no idea what the organizers are claiming. I haven’t seen any of those claims, but I can tell you that the whole idea of the flotilla is unnecessary, and we have no interest in dealing with it, and hopefully the flotilla will not leave to be on its way to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you another question and it’s about the journalists. The Israeli government has said that journalists who cover the flotilla will be banned from Israel for 10 years. Why?

IDO AHARONI: I think that this statement was reversed by the government, which issued another statement that journalists are welcome to board the ship we have nothing to hide.

AMY GOODMAN: So, will they not be arrested? We have our own journalists on board, our reporters are there in Athens and planning to board the ship. They will not be arrested? Do we have these guarantees, and their equipment, our cameras, will not be confiscated?

IDO AHARONI: Again, I don’t know the details. I guess that the people that will board the ship probably have to find information themselves. I can tell you that based on the statements of the Israeli government released, the Israeli press is more than welcome to cover the actions of the Israeli navy.

AMY GOODMAN: National press, not just Israeli press?

IDO AHARONI: You asked me about a statement that is part of the Israeli Press and a statement that was issued by the Israeli government. It’s part of the Israeli press and as the Prime Minister’s office clarified this decision was reversed and the media is more than welcome to, we’re operating in full transparency.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to follow up on a point you just made about what happened in November of 2008. An official Israeli government publication, theIsraeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, reported, “Hamas was careful to maintain the cease-fire” and only fired rockets at Israel “in retaliation,” after Israel broke the cease-fire on November 4th. This is an Israeli government publication.

IDO AHARONI: Well, I want to tell you something. You don’t really have to do more than just look at the Hamas Charter, this is an organization that openly calls for the annihilation of the state of Israel….

AMY GOODMAN: But the people on board the ship are people like the 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker, the well known labor lawyer Richard Levy, and others. These are the people who say that they are trying to challenge the blockade of Gaza, which brings me to this question, Consul General. Is Gaza occupied by Israel?

IDO AHARONI: The people that participate in this flotilla have to know what they’re doing and which organization they are endorsing and Hamas is a terrorist organization that totally negates the goals of the Palestinian national movement and our idea of a two state solution. …

AMY GOODMAN: But just that follow up on, is Israel occupying Gaza? Because it goes to the issue of whosw waters are off of the coast of Gaza? Does Israel have the right to intervene there?

IDO AHARONI: The reality on the ground is very simple, the facts are very simple. In August of 2005, the government of the state of Israel put an end to thousands of households in [inaudible] that practically handed over the keys to Gaza. Hamas, instead of turning it into an oasis, turned it into a safe haven for terrorists. It is something that no government, including the Israeli government, should accept. Thank you so much and have a great day.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you very much for joining us. We have just been speaking with the Consul General of Israel in New York, Ido Aharoni.

 

‘LA Times’ fails to state that ‘law prof’ writing that Gaza siege is legit is ex-IDF Lawyer

Jul 02, 2011

Ira Glunts

Amos Guiora had an op-ed in the LA Times yesterday which seeks to justify the Israeli blockade of Gaza and its plans to stop the Freedom Flotilla. The arguments Professor Guiora employs are standard Israeli hasbara which makes you wonder why the paper chose to print this uninspired and hackneyed piece.

Guiora, who is an Israeli citizen, was born and educated in the US, is identified only as a law professor at the University of Utah and the author of Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security. What the newspaper does not reveal is that Guiora spent 18 years in command positions in the Israeli Defense Forces, having risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps. This omission has been brought to the attention of the editors, but there has not been any correction made.

I first learned about Guiora in 2007 when my wife and I were writing about a “lawfare” institute at Syracuse University. At that time, Guiora was the head of The Institute for Global Security Law and Policy at Case Western University which he had founded. The institute was a typical “lawfare” shop that advocated changing international humanitarian law relating to asymmetrical warfare. The idea was to avoid troublesome charges about the use of disproportionate force by armies against insurgencies. Naturally Guiora was a strong supporter of the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and defended the IDF against charges of crimes in the conduct of that war.

In a 2006 interview with the Cleveland Jewish News, Professor Guiora outrageously claimed that Israel is a proxy for the Western world in what he predicted would be a one hundred year war against the Arabs. This is just one of a number of highly controversial and idiosyncratic statements this “Strangelove” has made. Many are available on the Net.

H/T to Watcher who asks that you write to the LA Times, here, requesting that they inform their readers of Guiora’s IDF history.  See his post for more on Guiora.

Alice Walker on the ‘many impediments orchestrated by the Israeli gov’t’

Jul 02, 2011

Philip Weiss

Alice Walker wrote a poem on the US Boat. It’s at this link, at Facebook, and includes these lines:

That a boat

filled

with love letters

from children

is a threat

to those

with

apparently

little memory

of youth

or experience

of love.

And it is introduced with this note:

Today is, I think, the 31st of June (Friday?) or is it the1st of July?

We have been in Athens since the 21st – trying to get to Gaza.  Many impediments orchestrated by the Israeli government.  But what a wonderful group of humans.

Therefore:  We’ve won.  We’re in Gaza.  To be in Gaza is to feel this love.  To know there is always a part of humanity that is awake even though the overburdened or the bewitched remain sleeping.

My throat is sore from breathing the tear gas that drifted into our hotel windows, as Greeks, mostly young, battle police, their brothers and sisters who are paid to keep them in line.  This is the tragedy.  I feel so much compassion for both sides my eyes tear and not only from the gas.

It was hard to breathe.  My lungs were fighting hard to protect me.  How I adore them, my lungs.  And so many of our group tried to protect us, my lungs and me, too.  A lovely young man named Steve gave me his own gas mask and someone else, a beautiful young woman with straw colored hair and blue gray eyes gave me the benefit of her knowledge of how to wear it.

I do not like calling such angels “blonde” as I feel the word is so loaded now and it sets them outside of Nature and somehow diminishes them.

I spent a blissful hour yesterday massaging Hedy’s feet.  She has the most wonderful  gray eyes – full of humor and light.  She’d never had a foot massage before, she said.  And she is eighty-seven!  Hard to imagine.

Hedy, I said – when she told everyone who passed by us: “I’m being spoiled” – I have a full body massage at least once a week!

This was a high point for me, as it is well established by now in myself and among my friends, that I like to massage the feet of anyone who stands up for us.  Humanity, I mean.

Or the other animals.

Hedy, holocaust survivor, inhaling the gas in Greece, but even more poignant, anticipating being tear gassed by the Israelis who are doing everything they can to threaten our boat.

I have no computer – they said not to bring  one on the boat because it would likely by  destroyed or confiscated – only this small notebook in which I have been avoiding writing the poem that starts and stops in my head:

Despite many setbacks, US boat did damage to Israel’s public image

Jul 02, 2011

Joseph Dana

How did it feel for the last few days to be on the US Boat? Here are some excerpts of Joseph Dana’s reporting from Athens, for the Nation:

On Thursday, the passengers of the Audacity of Hope, the US boat in the “Freedom Flotilla 2” to Gaza—a convoy of ten boats, two cargo ships and some 300 civilians—emerged from their hotel on the edge of an Athens turned upside down. The air was heavy from the stench of garbage and tear gas, after two days of a general strike and fighting between police and demonstrators protesting the latest austerity measures. But the dramatic urban landscape barely caught the passengers’ attention as they boarded a chartered bus to a distant Athenian port, kept secret until then due to security concerns….

Standing in front of more than seventy journalists from around the world, the thirty-five passengers called on the Greek government to allow their boat to sail. The idea was that if the government were to continue its efforts—coming after intense Israeli lobbying—to prevent the boat from sailing, it would be forced to do so in front of the world media, and thus might back down. But just one hour before the press conference was set to begin, the captain of the US boat announced that he was abandoning the mission, saying that he risked losing his maritime license and could face jail time if he didn’t. But this was only the latest setback for the flotilla….

Israeli officials claim the mission is an “anti-Israeli public relations stunt.”

If that’s the case, then the PR battle has resulted in largely positive exposure for the flotilla organizers, who have maintained the upper hand in the media war. Careful not to leak any sensitive information, the US organizers have been inconsistent in dealing with journalists planning to travel on their boat. And the gulf between the Israeli government’s organized media campaign and the haphazard and largely disorganized campaign of the US organizers has been evident. But the bellicose Israeli strategy has helped to publicize this story in ways the flotilla organizers could never have orchestrated themselves.

…Central to the Israeli strategy have been efforts to associate the passengers with violence. On Monday the Israeli press reported that flotilla passengers planned to use chemical “substances” against Israeli soldiers sent to intercept their ships. These unsubstantiated rumors attributed to “military sources” were presented as fact in the Jerusalem Post as well as in Yediot Ahronot, the most popular daily. Some military officials publicly challeged the accusations the day after the story entered the news cycle, but the damage had already been done….

Many passengers believe they have already achieved a major goal of their mission: to raise awareness about conditions in Gaza. Robert Naiman, a US boat passenger and policy director of the Washington, DC, think tank Just Foreign Policy, said, “The fact of the matter is that we have already won. The international press is talking about the blockade and Gaza. The contradiction between the world of the Israeli military officials and the world in which the rest of us live is exposed for all to see.”…

Alice Walker has become an icon and anchor of this diverse crew of Americans willing to risk their lives to highlight Israeli control over Gaza. At the flotilla’s only international press conference held so far in Athens, she expressed a widely shared sentiment when she said, “My government has failed us, and is ignorant of our own history.” Visibly exhausted from the last week in Athens, she added, “When black people were enslaved for 300 years, it took a lot of people from outside our community to help free us. This is a fine tradition—going to help people who need us anywhere on the planet. I look at you in the room; if we have salvation as humankind, it is in this room.”

70 cyclists committed to ‘bikes without borders’ are prevented from going into Hebron’s Old City

Jul 02, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid
Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 23-29 June
PCHR 30 June — IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank. -A Palestinian civilian was wounded. -IOF arrested two human rights defenders and 6 Palestinian civilians.  Israeli gunboats opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats in the Gaza Strip. -A fishing boat was damaged, and IOF arrested two fishermen, but released them later. IOF conducted 31 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. -IOF arrested 21 Palestinian civilians, including 7 children a Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, a human rights defender and a journalist. Israel has continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world. -IOF arrested 3 Palestinian civilians at military checkpoints in the West Bank. -IOF arrested a physically disabled young man at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the Gaza Strip.  IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property. -At least 100 graves were bulldozed in a cemetery in East Jerusalem. -IOF demolished two barnyards and well in Arab al-Rashaida village near Bethlehem. -IOF confiscated a plot near Hebron to establish an aircraft strip. – IOF destroyed irrigation networks near Hebron  -IOF uprooted 300 olive trees in Deir Estia village near Salfit.  [Details follow]
link to www.pchrgaza.org
IOA decides to demolish Mohammed Al-Fateh Mosque
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 1 July — David Harari, the vice-mayor of the Zionist administration of Jerusalem municipality, has issued an order to stop all renovations made to the Mohammed Al-Fateh mosque and to demolish it altogether alleging the construction was illegal. The Mosque stands only a short distance from the Aqsa Mosque which sends the message that the Israeli occupation has no respect for Muslim holy shrines, and that it could demolish mosques anytime it wishes, said Fakhri Abu Deyab, the chairman of the committee for the defense of Silwan town. But Abu Deyab pledged to defend the mosque and to stop the Israeli decision with all available means and at all cost, saying that the Israeli society “Israel Land Fund” was behind the call to destroy the mosque alleging the renovations were illegal.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
IOF troops raid village of Kafr al-Deek and uproot trees
SALFIT (PIC) 1 July — IOF troops raided on Thursday afternoon the village of Kafr al-Deek near Salfit and uprooted dozens of olive trees from the fields belonging to the villagers under the pretext that the trees are in “government lands” close to the Eili Zahaf settlement. Local sources said that IOF troops in large numbers raided the village accompanied with the so called civil administration officers and spread throughout the agricultural lands around the village. The sources added that the IOF troops imposed a security cordon in the area to the north of the Eili Zahaf settlement which is built on confiscated lands belonging to the Kafr al-Deek villagers and a military bulldozer started uprooting olive trees in the area. The Salfit district is one of the most targeted area in the West Bank for land confiscation and the number of Jewish settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land causing daily suffering for Palestinians.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Settlers
Israeli settlers and soldiers attack farmers reclaiming land near Hebron
Hebron (PNN) 1 July — On Friday midday a group of Israeli settlers, along with soldiers, attacked Palestinian farmers of Yatta in southern West Ban, all of whom were trying to reclaim their land that settlers took over earlier this year. As part of the local committee against the wall and settlements, internationals and Israelis joined farmers from Yatta and went to work their land near the Israeli settlement Kiryat Arba. The settlers took over the land earlier in the year and planted grape vines to supply the winery in the settlement with grapes. Recently the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that this land belongs to local farmers; as a result, on Friday people went and removed the grape vines settlers had planted and started to rehabilitate the land. Soon the settlers arrived and attacked people; later they were joined by Israeli military police and armed units.
link to english.pnn.ps
Settler arson attack in the village of Burin
[photos] ISM — On Thursday 30 June at 11:00 AM, the villagers of Burin reported that a fire was started by a group of settlers in one of the village´s crop field in the hills. According to a villager who witnessed the events, Walid M. N. noted that before the fire began to burn, approximately 50 settlers from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, including some children, were seen atop the hill which is just situated  in the southwest portion of the village. ISM was told that many villagers went up to the blaze to try to stop it, but the Nablus Fire Department had to be called afterwards to put the fire out. When ISM went to see where the attack had taken place, a jeep of Israeli soldiers could be seen watching the area. Burin is located in the southwest of Nablus. It has a population of approximately 4000 inhabitants. The villagers have been suffering from regular settler attacks for many years.
link to palsolidarity.org
Activism / Solidarity
Soldiers fire at Qalqiliya protest, injuring 4
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 1 July — Locals told Ma‘an that the village of Kafr Qaddum, to the east of Qalqiliya and overlooked by the illegal Israeli settlement Qedumim, organized a peaceful rally at the site to demand the opening of the gate in accordance with an Israeli Supreme Court ruling.  The army blocked the entrance to the gate, which separates the northern West Bank town from Israel and land belonging to Qalqiliya residents, and fired tear gas.
Israeli settlers also set fire to lands adjoining Kafr Qaddum on Friday, local witnesses said. The land was owned by Suleiman Sa’eed Ali and Abed Al-Mahdi Ali.
link to www.maannews.net
Palestinian man still under arrest after demonstration in Beit Ommar on Saturday
ISM 29 June — Two international activists are released following their arrest and court hearing in Jerusalem, while a Palestinian man is still under custody following a peaceful demonstration in Beit Ommar that occurred on June 25th. The two international activists and a 22 year old Palestinian were brutally arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Beit Ommar, in the southern region of the West Bank. The non-violent demonstration took place  there  and was nearing its end when approximately ten Israeli soldiers and border police arrested the 22 year old Palestinian man with force. The man’s t-shirt was ripped into pieces as he was being arrested. He was restrained to the ground and kneed in the chest. A soldier later twisted his handcuffs aggressively, contorting the man’s wrists, cutting the man on both wrists.  When trying to reach the Palestinian man and assist him, an international activist was violently thrown to the ground by a border police.  The activist, from Sweden, landed on her back and a soldier pinned her to the ground, laying heavily on top of her and making it hard for her to breathe.
link to palsolidarity.org
Three weeks later, American Jewish activist arrested in Jerusalem sits down with PNN
Bethlehem (JI/PNN Exclusive) 30 June — Many of the commenters on the videos of your arrest in Jerusalem have been positive, but there have been critical ones as well.  From those comments, there seems to be a common thread of disbelief about what preceded such a violent reaction.  Can you explain what occurred during those few minutes that the camera does not see? …The scene at the opening of the video showing my interview by journalists and my subsequent harassment by the police, demanding my passport, occurred approximately forty-five minutes to an hour before the actual arrest shown in the final moments. Ignorant of such a time lapse, many incorrectly place my violent arrest as the logical outcome of my refusal to hand over my passport
link to english.pnn.ps
Israeli troops attack anti-Wall weekly protests, Bil‘in celebrates removal of the Wall
Ramallah (PNN) 1 July – Dozens were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation on Friday as Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protests in a number of West Bank communities. This week, protests were reported in the villages of al-Nabi Salleh, Bil‘in, and Ni‘lin in the central West Bank, as well as al-Ma‘ssara in the south … International and Israeli supporters joined the villages and held the midday prayers at the lands that Israeli returned to the farmers. Later a small festival was held by the villagers and local men and women preformed the Palestinian folklore dance, Dabka. As part of the new form of struggle villagers decided to build one house on the freed lands to encourage village to start a new section of the village there.
link to english.pnn.ps
Violence
Palestinian man dies of wounds he sustained three months ago
Hebron (PNN) 1 July — A Palestinian was reported dead on Friday evening due to wounds he sustained three months ago when Israeli police opened fire at him as he was driving back home near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Jallal al-Massri, 30 years old, was going back home from Jerusalem to his village of Ithna near Hebron. An Israeli police officer opened fire at him as he drove by and critically injured him. The man was taken to Hadasa Israeli hospital in Jerusalem where he died today, Palestinian sources reported. The circumstances of the attack by the police remain unknown.
link to english.pnn.ps
Violent clashes in Shu‘afat refugee camp, one youth injured
RAMALLAH (PIC) 1 July — The IOF announced on Thursday night the closure of the Shu‘afat roadblock until further notice due to violent clashes between IOF troops and Palestinian youth at the Shu‘afat refugee camp and which resulted in the injury of a Palestinian young man and his arrest by the IOF. Local sources said that the clashes ensued when IOF soldiers manning the road block provoked the Palestinian youth by firing teargas towards a group of them near the roadblock injuring one of them and proceeding to arrest the injured youth.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Detention
Gaza man sentenced after 8 years’ detention
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 1 July — An Israeli military court in Beersheba, Israel sentenced a Gaza man to 20 years in jail, a Jerusalem center for detainees said Thursday. Nahed Humeid, from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, was detained by Israeli forces in 2003. Eight years later, he was charged with 21 crimes in January, including planting explosive devices in the coastal strip, firing missiles into Israel, and being affiliated to several political factions. He was convicted on 11 counts, the center said. According to latest figures from the Palestinian Authority, Israel holds 219 Palestinians in administrative detention, under which imprisonment without charge is renewed every 6 months.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli military court renews administrative detention of Palestinian MP
AL-KHALIL,(PIC) 30 June — An Israeli military court extended the administrative detention, without charge, of Hamas MP Azzam Salhab, 54, for four more months. Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank said that the continued administrative custody of Salhab fell in line with an Israeli policy to absent those deputies from the Palestinian political arena.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Israel continues arrest campaign in Azzun
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 30 June — Israeli forces on Thursday detained three Palestinians in Azzun in the northern West Bank, witnesses said. Locals identified the detainees as Kathem Mufeed Radwan, 18, Useid Yaser Salim, 22, and Ala Samir Salim, 20. During a night raid Tuesday, Israeli forces had detained five residents of the town, including a 13-year-old boy. Israel detained more than 20 Palestinians from Azzun in June, most of whom were aged 14 – 23.
link to www.maannews.net
Soldiers from the Nahshon Brigade raid Askalan jail, assault captives
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 1 July — …Amjad al-Najjar, director of the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), said that the captives in Askalan were upset when the prison administration closed the section which has a canteen for Palestinian captives and expressed their anger by banging on doors. Soldiers from the Nahshon Brigade raided the prison and assaulted Palestinian captives using truncheons and teargas on them causing the injury of a number of captives.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Restriction of movement
Photoessay: Rush hour at Bethlehem Checkpoint / Porter Speakman, Jr.
Bethlehem, West Bank 30 June — I set my alarm for 4:45 AM and headed out of Jerusalem to take some video at the Bethlehem checkpoint for an upcoming project. Jerusalem was still very quiet, a stark difference from what was awaiting in the nearby Palestinian Bethlehem. As I crossed over into the city you could hear the voices of thousands of people lined up both in the terminal and awaiting access. This is morning “rush hour” in Bethlehem Checkpoint. Thousands of Palestinians who live in Bethlehem and work in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities start their day around 3:00 AM by lining up at the checkpoint. Although the checkpoint does not open until around 5:00 AM, getting a good place in line can mean the difference between a one-hour crossing or a much longer one. You never really know how long it’s going to take to get through
link to 972mag.com
Report: Men under 45 blocked from Al-Aqsa Friday
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 1 July — Israeli police said Friday that they will block the entry of men under 45 to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli media reported. Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post said the police restrictions came after intelligence on “plans to disrupt the peace at the site.” … Israeli authorities regularly restrict the entry of men under 45 on occasions such as Israeli holidays, while Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza must request special permission to pray at the holy site.
link to www.maannews.net
Cycling for freedom of movement
ISM 30 June — 70 cyclists from Hebron and surrounding areas, as well as 15 international cyclists, pedaled through Hebron on Tuesday in an attempt to challenge restrictions imposed on the freedom of movement. The group set off from near the centre of the city and cycled in unison through the streets of Hebron, waving Palestinians flags. Bikes were decorated with signs saying “We have the right to move,” “The wheels of change are in motion,” and “Bikes against borders” in English and Arabic… As the bikers moved through the streets, people waved, shouted and honked in support. As the cyclists tried to cycle towards the Old City they found that the demonstration’s route had been blocked by 30 border police and soldiers, as well as two barbed wire fences stretched across the street. The group peacefully asked the border police to let them pass and continue their journey as soldiers pointed guns at them from the roofs of a nearby house.
link to palsolidarity.org
Flotillas
US Boat to Gaza sets sail from Greece to join the Freedom Flotilla / Adam Horowitz
Mondoweiss 1 July — Sequence of events today, from photos and a video of the boat leaving port with hopeful passengers, to tweets as events unfolded (still updating on the site), to the Greek government order not to sail
link to mondoweiss.net
Gaza-bound boat: Greek commandos forced us back
Ynet 1 July 23:57 — Heavily armed Greek forces with their firearms drawn forced a Gaza-bound ship to turn around and return to Greece, where the vessel is now being held in a military base, activists on board the Audacity of Hope said Friday evening. “We were forced to go back to a Greek port surrounded with bars and barbwire,” a Twitter message from the Gaza-bound vessel said. “We were in a holding pattern for probably three hours when the commandos arrived with drawn weapons.”  Hagit Borer, an Israeli-American citizen on the ship, told Ynet: “They are not letting us out. They took us back to a military dockyard and let the journalists disembark. I don’t know what they’ll be doing with us.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
US Gaza-bound boat returning to Greek port
AJE 1 July15:00 — Vessel seeking to break Israel’s siege of Gaza Strip returns to Greek port after it was intercepted by armed commandos — The Greek embassy in Tel Aviv put out a statement confirming that the Greek coast guard has enforced a decision by the Civil Defence to prevent all flotilla vessels from leaving Greek ports. Greece’s Civil Protection Ministry said coast guard authorities had been ordered to take “all appropriate measures” to implement the ban. It also said the “broader maritime area of the eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating” in the flotilla. “What I am witnessing right now at this moment is Israeli diplomatic pressure on the Greek government to ensure that these boats do not leave any port inside Greece,” Dana said.
link to english.aljazeera.net
Greece bars boats leaving Athens for Gaza
[well at least it made the MSN] ATHENS, Greece (AP) 1 July — Greece on Friday banned ships heading to the Gaza Strip from leaving Greek ports, and a vessel carrying several dozen American protesters which left port without permission was ordered to return. A flotilla of nine Greek and foreign-flagged vessels and several hundred activists have said they want to break Israel’s sea blockade and deliver aid to the Palestinian territory.
link to www.google.com
Netanyahu’s big fat Greek wedding / Barak Ravid
Haaretz 1 July — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sometimes seems almost too arrogant and self assured for his own good. However, unlike in most instances, this weekend he actually has justification for his haughtiness. Netanyahu’s personal investment in his relationship over the past year-and-a-half with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in which he increased diplomatic ties with the floundering European nation seems to have put the final nail in the Gaza flotilla’s coffin.
link to www.haaretz.com
Gilmore warning on Gaza ‘aid boat sabotage’
1 July — The Irish Government would take a very serious view if it turned out an Irish aid boat bound for Gaza was sabotaged, Tanaiste [deputy prime minister]  Eamon Gilmore said yesterday as seven Irish activists returned home. As activists accused Israel of damaging the propeller of the vessel in a Turkish port, the Foreign Affairs Minister said he was “concerned” about reports that the ship may have been sabotaged.
link to www.independent.ie
Watchful activists guard boats bound for Gaza
GazaTV/AJ Activists planning on participating in an aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip are now guarding their ship around the clock after alleged sabotage disabled other boats in the planned convoy. The Dutch-Italian ship Stefano Chiarim is waiting in a port on the Greek Island of Corfu for approval from the Greek government to begin the journey to Gaza … In a bid to prevent further damage to the flotilla, activists on board the ship created a “security rota” and are now taking shifts to stand guard on their boat around the clock. At any time, at least five people are patrolling the deck, with another in the galley, hoping to catch a perpetrator in the case of another attack … Early on Friday morning the ‘guards’ on the ship rang the alarm bells when one of them heard a noise coming from under the 20 metre long vessel.
link to gazatvnews.com
Navy to deploy ‘floating ORs’
Ynet 30 June — The IDF and Navy are on high alert ahead of the nearing Gaza flotilla. Fearing an attempt to stop the sail from reaching the Strip would result in casualties, the military has decided to convert mess halls on two missile boats into operating rooms, in order to treat casualties at sea. Ynet learned Thursday that the decision stemmed from the lessons learned from the first flotilla and the military’s desire to offer immediate medical attention for the injured — if there are any. Military medevacs will also be at hand, in case the injured need to be airlifted to hospitals in Israel.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Was Israeli unit Sheyetet 13 behind the sabotage of Gaza-bound flotilla ships? / Max Blumenthal
30 June — Two boats among the fleet of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla have been sabotaged. While Israel has not taken credit for the sabotage, all signs point in its direction. The Israeli military boasts an elite underwater sabotage division, Yaltam, that operates out of Shayetet 13, the naval commando unit that raided the Mavi Marmara last year and killed 9 of its passengers. According to SpecWarNet, an online database of international special forces units, “For underwater sabotage missions, each [Shayetet 13] diver can carry a limpet mine to attach to the hull of enemy watercraft or docks.” The Guardian reported on Shayetet 13’s history of sabotaging civilian ships in international harbors: “It is known to have been involved in numerous clandestine seaborne operations, including many raids on neighbouring Lebanon. It works closely with the Mossad secret service. It was also involved in a curious foreshadowing of the Gaza incident in February 1988, when Flotilla 13 is reported to have sabotaged an attempt by the PLO to highlight the issue of Palestinian refugees by sailing a ship to an Israeli port, forcing Israel either to sink it or board it or let it land the refugees. The night before the vessel, al-Awda (”The Return”) was due to sail, it was blown up and sunk in Limassol harbour, Cyprus — with no loss of life or political embarrassment.”
link to maxblumenthal.com
Israeli army has no evidence for claim of flotilla’s violent plans / Max Blumenthal
29 June — Update: Neues Deutschland reported that chief army spokesperson Avital Liebovich claimed Israel infiltrated the US boat to Gaza with naval intelligence agents, who relayed the IDF with a report of the passengers’ violent intentions. The passengers denied the claim as baseless and hysterical. The ludicrous nature of Liebovich’s claim is underscored by my interview (below) with the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, where she works. A robot translation of the ND article is here.
link to maxblumenthal.com
The battle over the Gaza flotilla / Joseph Dana
Nation 1 July — …Many passengers believe they have already achieved a major goal of their mission: to raise awareness about conditions in Gaza. Robert Naiman, a US boat passenger and policy director of the Washington, DC, think tank Just Foreign Policy, said, “The fact of the matter is that we have already won. The international press is talking about the blockade and Gaza. The contradiction between the world of the Israeli military officials and the world in which the rest of us live is exposed for all to see.” … Alice Walker has become an icon and anchor of this diverse crew of Americans willing to risk their lives to highlight Israeli control over Gaza. At the flotilla’s only international press conference held so far in Athens, she expressed a widely shared sentiment when she said, “My government has failed us, and is ignorant of our own history.”
link to www.thenation.com
With multiple ships disabled, organizers regroup in Greece / Amira Hass
Haaretz 1 July — GREECE – With two ships sabotaged – the Irish ship is in no condition to sail and the Swedish-Greek-Norwegian Giuliano is still being repaired – the impulse is to depart from port and wait for the rest at sea, along with the French ship that sailed Saturday. This is also the wish of all those on the Tahrir, the Canadian ship with its 50 passengers … Psychologically people are getting ready to receive the call at three in the afternoon or two in the morning, and they know who they have to call in turn … It seems like the participants in the flotilla are undergoing a process of “Gaza-tization.” They are willingly experiencing, for a few days, some of the characteristics of life under siege in the Gaza Strip. They are tied up against their will within a limited radius of several kilometers. Their plans are repeatedly foiled by superior forces. Their clearance to depart has been canceled, and they are waiting for it to be renewed.
link to www.haaretz.com
Gazans unimpressed with flotilla
Ynet 1 July — Israeli claims over futility of flotilla receive reinforcement from surprising direction – Gazan businessmen who say it isn’t imports that are problem, it’s exports … The Gazan businessmen stress that they are not opposed to the flotilla: “It is not that we don’t support the flotilla, we just want both. Not just the entry of goods but their export so that the economy will be rehabilitated and people can return to the workforce in the factories,” said Tilbani.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Gaza flotilla activists: Queers welcome aboard aid ships / Amira Hass
Haaretz 30 June — John Greyson, Canadian Gaza flotilla activist, responds to recent YouTube video claiming homosexuals are not welcome on board the flotilla; tells Haaretz video is a ‘ridiculously transparent attempt to vilify the flotilla’.
link to www.haaretz.com
Documentary: Fire on the Marmara / David Segarra
CulturesofResistance.org — New documentary about the flotilla to Gaza that was attacked by the israeli commandos in 2010. ‘Only the sea remains / One defiant wave at a time’ – Samah Sabawi.  Dror Feiler, others.
link to www.youtube.com
Racism / Discrimination / Suppression of dissent
Head to Head: Why are so few Arabs in higher education?
Haaretz 28 June — An interview with Haifa Professor Majid Al-Haj — Only 2.7 percent of all Israeli university lecturers are Arabs, according to statistics presented to the Knesset’s investigatory committee on the absorption of Arabs in government jobs. The percentage of all Arabs in the higher education administrative staff, at any level, is even lower: 1.7 percent. Prof. Majid Al-Haj, the vice president of Haifa University, is the most senior Arab in the higher education system today. In 2001, he headed a council subcommittee that put together a report on the subject. Prof. Al-Haj, where do you see an improvement or, alternatively, stagnation in connection to absorbing Arabs in academia – as students, faculty and administrative staff – in the decade since your 2001 report was submitted to the council? “Over the last ten years there has been a significant rise in the number of Arab students in bachelor’s degree programs at universities and colleges. What has not changed is the representation of Arabs in programs for more advanced degrees…”
link to www.haaretz.com
A critical test for the police / Uri Gopher
Haaretz 1 July — The police cannot afford to waste time; the department must take the initiative now if it wishes to reverse the worrying trend in its relations with Arab society …  For many Arab citizens, the murders last month of Hadra Abu Gariba in Lod and Sammy Katar in Yarka – the 15th and 16th murders of Arab-Israelis this year – are not only expressions of the surging violence and soaring crime rates their community is suffering from and deploring publicly in every possible forum. They are also an expression of ongoing and intentional neglect of the Arab community by the state, in general, and by the police, specifically … A survey of the Arab population (conducted as part of a project operated by the Abraham Fund Initiatives in conjunction with the Israel Police), showed that Arab citizens’ main expectations of the police include more effective responses to violence and internal disputes, drug offenses and hazards of various sorts…. 
link to www.haaretz.com
Jewish parents in multicultural school demand parity in the classroom
Haaretz 1 July — The only public elementary school in Israel with both Arab and Jewish students may shut down. Parents of Jewish students in Jaffa’s Weizmann School are threatening to move their children to other schools unless the municipality ensures parity between Arab and Jewish students. Although the school’s studies are conducted in Hebrew, most of its students are Arabs. The Jewish parents are demanding the school be opened to students from other areas to ensure an equal number of Jewish and Arab students.
link to www.haaretz.com
Draft law to deny Sheikh Raed Salah access to Israeli academic institutions
MEMO 1 July — A member of the extreme right-wing Yisrael Beitenu Party is drafting a law to deny access to academic institutions for anyone “assisting ‘terrorist’ organisations”. The move is intended to prevent the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, from taking part in debates in Israel’s universities, and signals a shift even further to the right for Israel’s policies against its own Palestinian citizens. Alex Miller MK announced that the draft law he calls “Raed Salah” will be put to the Israeli parliament on Sunday.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Report: Tel Aviv police confiscate bicycles from refugees who can’t prove ownership
Haaretz 1 July — The police have begun confiscating their bicycles, say refugees living in Israel who cannot prove they own them, according to the newspaper “The Refugee Voice,” which is coming out with its second issue today. Following a wave of bicycle thefts in Tel Aviv, police in the city instituted a new policy several weeks ago, confronting African asylum seekers who have bicycles and demanding proof they purchased the bikes and didn’t than steal them, the paper said.
link to www.haaretz.com
Political / Diplomatic / International news
Report: US to offer Israel incentives to negotiate
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma’an) 1 July — The US is preparing to offer incentives to Israel in exchange for a return to negotiations based on 1967 borders, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported Friday.
link to www.maannews.net
UN extends mandate of Golan Heights peacekeeping force
WASHINGTON (Ynet) 1 July –  The Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of the United Nations force monitoring the ceasefire in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria for another six months.  According to a UN press release, the resolution extending UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) mandate was adopted unanimously. The statement said the UN Security Council was “deeply concerned that recent events have put the long-held ceasefire in jeopardy.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
In Balata, the future is scarier than September
Haaretz 1 July — In the Balata refugee camp, Taisir Nasrallah, director general in the Nablus governor’s office and a central Fatah activist, says ‘stability’ affects Palestinians more than UN declaration of statehood — …Taisir Nasrallah, of Balata, was one of the Fatah youth leaders in the Nablus area during the first intifada. He does not believe a third intifada is likely in the near future. However, he does believe the Palestinian refugees will return to their homes in Israel some day … “We give the kids courses on the right of return and teach them that the Israelis stole their lands. We’ve sent hundreds of camp children into Israel to see the villages and towns that were taken from us. We took them to Jaffa, Ramle.” “Our message is that without a doubt they will return to the places from which they were driven out,” he says.
link to www.haaretz.com
Human interest – sports
An American soccer star playing for Palestine
[photos] CNN 1 July — At six foot five, with his shock of blond hair shaved into a fat Mohawk and talking in a languid Georgian drawl, Omar Jarun looks like he was once part of an all-conquering college basketball team. But the 26-year-old American doesn’t play basketball … On Sunday he will line up as a defender for the Palestinian national soccer team as they take on Afghanistan in a match that, just one year on from the World Cup final in South Africa, represents one of the first steps towards qualification for the next tournament in Brazil in 2014. Besides being Palestine’s first World Cup match on home soil, Sunday’s encounter will have extra significance for Jarun. It will be the first time he has ever set foot in the West Bank and he plans to visit his ancestral town of Tulkarem. link to edition.cnn.com
Arab sports in Israel — a special project / Neta Ahituv
Haaretz 1 July — The handful of Arab tennis players in Israel have to join ‘Jewish’ clubs because of a lack of funds. A tennis school in the village of Jaljulya, run by a Jewish man and an Arab woman, is trying to change that.
link to www.haaretz.com
Coexistence costs money / Mazen Ghnaim
Haaretz 30 June — I took responsibility for the Bnei Sakhnin soccer club because I knew what the club’s potential was. I came in the belief that through soccer I can advance the interests of both the Arab population and myself … At first it was practically impossible to sign Jewish players to Sakhnin. I wanted to promote coexistence and show that there is a way to live in peace and brotherhood. Soccer provided suitable turf, but the results didn’t come immediately. Jewish players did not rush to sign for Sakhnin. In their eyes, Sakhnin was a poor, hostile Arab village, not a respectable place to be seen in.
link to www.haaretz.com
Analysis / Opinion
Israel has become a society of force and violence / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 30 June — Are we listening to ourselves? Are we still aware of the awful noise coming from here? Have we noticed how the discourse is becoming more and more violent and how the language of force has just about become Israel’s only official language? A group of international activists is slated to sail a flotilla to the shores of the Gaza Strip. Many of them are social activists and fighters for peace and justice, veterans of the struggle against apartheid, colonialism, imperialism, pointless wars and injustice. Just stating that is difficult here, since they have already been described as thugs … We haven’t heard the last of the campaign to demonize the previous flotilla, in which Turkish citizens were killed for no reason, yet the new campaign has already begun. It has all the buzzwords: danger, chemical substances, hand-to-hand combat, Muslims, Turks, Arabs, terrorists and maybe some suicide bombers. Blood and fire and pillars of smoke!  The unavoidable conclusion is that there is only one way to act against the passengers aboard the flotilla: by force, and only by force, as with every security threat. This is a recurring pattern: first demonization, then legitimization (to act violently ). Remember the tall tales about sophisticated Iranian weaponry coming through arms-smuggling tunnels in Gaza, or those about how the Strip was booby-trapped? Then Operation Cast Lead came along and the soldiers hardly encountered anything like that.
link to www.haaretz.com
Zionists, relax, Israel is not on the brink of destruction / Carlo Strenger
Haaretz blog 30 June — Rational thinking is highly unpopular in the Netanyahu government, which seems caught in the belief that catastrophe is on the way — One of the best-known Yiddish expressions is ‘Gevalt, Yiddelech, Gevalt!’, a phrase best translated as ‘catastrophe, Jews, catastrophe!’. I would suggest that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition officially be named the Gevalt! Government. Listening to the utterances of our ministers, you would come to the conclusion that the State of Israel is about to be erased and the Jewish people are in danger of immediate extinction.
link to www.haaretz.com
‘The Audacity of Hope’ waits to sail to Gaza / Mark Weisbrot
AJE 30 June — The ‘Palestinians’ transition to non-violent protests’ deeply concerns the Israeli government and its US backers — One of the most important foreign policy statements of the year came from Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister, on May 16. Responding to non-violent protests at Israeli borders and military posts, he said: “The Palestinians’ transition from terrorism and suicide bombings to deliberately unarmed mass demonstrations is a transition that will present us with difficult challenges.” …The comparative advantage of the rich and powerful against non-violent resistance has significantly diminished in recent years. Although they still hold the upper hand with the vast majority of the world’s communications resources, their monopoly over messaging has been shattered by the internet, social media, and other new forms of competition.
link to english.aljazeera.net
King Lior and his subjects / Sefi Rachlevsky
Haaretz 1 July — When King Lior parted from the evildoers, who had detained him for an hour of questioning, he turned to Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, where he was borne on the shoulders of those celebrating his messianic kingdom. Once again, he began to use the many official positions that entitle him to tens of thousands of shekels each month, and gave a class at the Nir hesder yeshiva (combining Torah studies with military service ) in Kiryat Arba, which he heads … During the present time of repression, when the fawning “rule of law” takes prides in delaying kings for a very brief preliminary inquiry, every parent should know the repressed facts about Rabbi Dov Lior, the acting commander of numerous soldiers. Menachem Livni, who was convicted of murders, headed a terror organization dubbed the “Jewish underground.” He testified that the spirit behind the underground was Lior – and not just for his preaching and religious rulings regarding the need to murder Arabs or killing “innocent people.” Lior, according to the testimony of the murderer, was involved in the details and decided how and when they would act. Lior pressured the hesitant perpetrators to blow up six buses with all their passengers. The buses were loaded with explosives with the object of killing hundreds. Only the delay enabled the Shin Bet security service to arrest them at the last minute.
link to www.haaretz.com
LA Times runs pro-Gaza blockade op-ed and omits that author is retired IDF colonel
1 July — In its July 1st edition, the LA Times is running an OpEd piece by Amos N. Guiora titled, “Gaza Flotilla: Israel’s Gaza sea blockade is an act of self-defense.” In the bio at the bottom of the piece, the author is identified only as: “a professor of law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, is the author of ‘Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security.'” Glaringly missing from the description of Guiora is the fact that he is a retired Israeli Defense Forces Lieutenant Colonel who believes that extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinians is within Israel’s rights under international law. The “oversight” is akin to the LA Times publishing a pro-torture OpEd by John Yoo and identifying him simply as a University of California professor of law.
link to www.indybay.org
Operation Desert Bloom: the Zionist myth that won’t spoil, wither, or die / Nima Shirazi
Wide Asleep in America 30 June — …the truth is that the Palestinian soil didn’t actually require expert Jewish agricultural know-how to produce fruits, vegetables, and the myriad other crops native to the land. Pre-Israel Palestine was not quite the barren dustbowl of Zionist fantasy – far from it … During the 1944-1945 planting season, nearly 210,000 tons of grain were cultivated in Palestine, of which 193,376 tons were Arab crops, compared to 16,579 tons of Jewish crops … Of the over 244,800 tons of vegetables produced in Palestine that season, Arab farmers were responsible for more than 189,000 tons; of the 94,700 tons of fruit, Arab orchards produced 73,000 tons. Almost all of the region’s citrus groves were Palestinian owned and operated … Eighty percent of the 40-50,000 tons of grapes and 4-5 million liters of wine were produced in Arab vineyards.
link to www.wideasleepinamerica.com
Waiting for Godot on the Gaza flotilla / Mark LeVine
AJE 1 July — Unlike the existentialist play, Palestinians are facing a meaningful struggle to stay human in the face of oppression — …if the Israelis have their way, the endless wait in Gaza, and the occupied territories more broadly, suggests a very different and more pernicious meaning: We own you. We determine what you can or cannot do, where you can and cannot live and go, who can and cannot be part of your lives. You in fact have no freedom save what we give to you; there is no point to your waiting.  And this waiting has been going on a very long time. The Israeli siege of Gaza that defines life in the enclave today did not begin in 2009 with the invasion. Nor did it begin with the gradual closing in of Gaza at the start of the Oslo peace process.  Rather, the occupation has always been defined by an ever-tightening siege, with Palestinians increasingly surrounded and hemmed in by settlements, walls, check points, F-16s, Apaches helicopters and the bullets and bombs that rain down from them. They are confined bypass roads, closed military zones, “parks” and other areas built on the ruins of what was there before. Together the geography of the occupation has always constrained their freedom of movement, their livelihoods, even their dreams of a better future.
link to english.aljazeera.net
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www.theheadlines.org (archive)